Chapter 1: God's Favorite Lil Joke
Summary:
I made this shit out anger because some bitch at work pissed me the fuck off-
Not you twilight fans and stans! You didn't do shit to me, I will later add why she got stuck in here but it's a bit emotional reason why she got stuck in twilight series not zombie novel or harry potter universe...you will all understand soon!
Also, I hate people claiming people wtf?! Like let me give you the run down someone basically try fight me for a man! AT WORK A FUCKING COWORKER!
AHAHAANYWAY, HE NOT SINGLE & DATING SOMEONE ELSE THAT AINT EVEN OUR COWORKER BROS!!
This is my self-soothing method of sorts, me learning stop being a little bitch, and admit my daddy issues along with other shit here.
Also, me crashing and burning trying fight Edward here!
Notes:
I had emotional breakdown at work because of a coworker wanting fight me for man?!
Like wtf I just work here I ain't looking for a man in fact BIG EW
Also, he is pretty chill bro that is loyal to his gal!
Yay! Healthy relationships and stable ones!
Never fight for a man- lame shit- fight air bitch not me.
Keep him ewwww- leave me alone- everyone can have me but me is my mentality now!
Why I want him? No! He looks like that! I don't want that- I want uh be stable?! SAy NO to Men, deadass not fighting for male attention or men to choose me haha ew
O you want this one, well bitch you can, there's million more of this type of guy, bruh! Like damn...local fish mad that other fishes need water to live in!
The fuck?!
Never be this man's blah blah because a good thing too! I would hate to be his too!
The situation reminds me of my high school times, and I said to myself I am no longer in high school anymore, fuck that shit I am out then breakdown, panicking, vomiting in my work's restroom- very embarrassing!
Over the fact I was like I don't ever want fuck with these people, but I need this job so bad.
Also, I am grown women who knows I am damn well not fighting for dick or anything ever again!
Never fight for a love interest- lame choose the other bitch not me, ge-ge- get out here!
Chapter Text
I believe I have love-hate relationship with the ocean as well as living. I don't know why can't seem to control it, the fact that I am living or the fact that no one ever been stupid enough to try to control currents of the said ocean. You see I struggle with suicidal tendencies since I can remember, it's not like one asks for this life or to be plague with unhealthy urges.
I am starting to believe it can be genetic even, not only based on trauma like my own. I wish can say I was lucky one, even the blessed one, and mostly because I have therapist now. But lastly, I can't. As I draft unconscious to end this world of pain laying weakly on a hospital bed wondering if I will be due to die before the surgery even begins.
Darkness in this abyss of mine I wonder if I truly have died until I am hit with the smell of salt- sea salt to be exact.
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the ocean- I will always have that in this life—and with living. Maybe they’re the same thing. Both pull you under when you least expect it. Both are endless, merciless, and hauntingly beautiful. You can’t reason with either. You just surrender and hope you come back up for air.
When the darkness took me, I thought it was peace. I thought I’d finally slipped beyond the ache in my chest, the endless noise in my head. There was a heartbeat, then silence. A light behind my eyes. Then nothing.
Until salt burned my throat.
I opened my mouth to scream but swallowed the sea instead. Cold, choking, heavy. My body thrashed on instinct, but the waves hit harder. Something was dragging me deeper—currents that felt alive, tugging like invisible hands. The light above fractured, silver and gray, until I couldn’t tell which way was up. My lungs begged for air; my heart begged for mercy.
This isn’t peace.
This is punishment.
When I broke the surface, it was violent—spitting, coughing, shaking. The wind sliced my skin, cold and Pacific-sharp. I tried to scream for help, but the only sound that came out was my ragged breath. Through the blur of water and sky, I caught sight of cliffs—dark silhouettes and a strip of dense evergreens beyond. A shore. Land.
I clawed toward it. Every wave tried to claim me again, and I kept thinking, Maybe I deserve it. Maybe this is hell. But something deep inside refused. I didn’t come all this way to vanish again.
Then voices—distant, calling, urgent.
A flash of red jacket on the beach.
Two figures running into the surf.
“Hold on!” one shouted. “We got you!”
Strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me through the breakers. I felt sand beneath my knees, then the sting of air in my lungs as someone tilted my head back. I vomited up seawater and cried at the same time, shaking uncontrollably. The taller man—bronze skin, black long hair—was yelling for someone named Leah to grab a blanket. Another, younger voice—Embry, I thought I heard—kept saying, “She’s okay, she’s breathing, she’s breathing!”
I didn’t know who they were, but I could tell by their accents, their warmth, their urgency—they were from here. From La Push. And somehow, I’d washed up on their shore.
When I finally found my voice, it came out between sobs and half-swallowed prayers.
“Gracias a Dios… María… y sus Milagros…”
The words came out raw, broken, more like gasps than speech.
The taller one met my eyes—worried, gentle, alive.
“You’re safe,” he said. “We’ve got you. You’re okay.”
But my body knew otherwise.
Because this wasn’t my world.
And if I’d died back there—then where in God’s name had I just been reborn?
The sand beneath me felt unreal. It scraped my palms as I clawed at it, dragging myself away from the tide like the ocean might still reach out and pull me back. My body trembled, every muscle screaming, but I kept crawling until I was out of reach of the waves.
Then I collapsed—face pressed into the wet ground, salt stinging my cracked lips.
“Hey—easy, easy,” the tall man said again, kneeling beside me. Sam. I recognized his voice now. Calm but commanding, like someone used to giving orders when everything goes wrong.
Another voice, lighter and younger—Embry—hovered near. “Should we call someone? Like an ambulance?”
“She needs warmth first,” Sam said. I could feel him place something heavy and rough around my shoulders—someone’s jacket. “Keep her talking.”
But I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to scream. My voice came out hoarse, shredded from seawater and disbelief.
“You did this to me,” I rasped to the ocean, not even sure if I was speaking aloud or thinking it. “You cursed me being here.”
The surf roared back, as if mocking me.
The wind howled in agreement.
Sam glanced toward the water like he’d heard me, too. Maybe he had. His eyes—dark and unnervingly knowing—narrowed. “You’re lucky the current didn’t take you under,” he said quietly. “Most people don’t survive that spot.”
Lucky.
Right.
I rolled onto my side, forcing myself upright. The world spun. The horizon tilted and blurred, but through it, I saw people running down the beach. A small group—La Push locals, I realized—teenagers and older family members wrapped in hoodies and windbreakers, shouting in both English and Quileute. Concerned faces, familiar voices from a world I had only ever read about.
For a second, the sight made my chest ache—like I’d stumbled into someone else’s dream.
Then recognition hit me.
Too specific to be a coincidence.
The cliffs. The beach. The people.
Sam Uley. Embry Call. Leah Clearwater or whatever.
My breath caught, shaky.
“No,” I whispered. “No, this isn’t—this can’t be—”
Embry frowned. “What’d she say?”
Sam didn’t answer. He was watching me too closely, like he could see the storm behind my eyes.
I sat there, soaked, wrapped in his jacket, staring at them. They looked exactly how I remembered from the movie poster I used to see in middle school. The angular faces, the dark hair, the warmth in their eyes. Even the way the mist clung to their clothes.
A laugh tore out of me—half hysterical, half terrified.
“Oh my God. No. No, no, no, no.”
“Hey,” Embry said, crouching down beside me. “You hit your head or something?”
“This is…” I pressed my hands to my temples, shaking my head. “This is not real. It can’t be real. I hate these books. I hate this series.”
Sam’s expression softened. “You’re in shock.”
“No, I’m in Twilight,” I snapped, the words tasting bitter on my tongue. “Of all the universes to get thrown into, it had to be this one?
Not zombies, not The Forest of Hands and Teeth—no. I get cursed into sparkly vampire hell.”
Embry blinked. “What?”
“I’m dreaming,” I muttered. “Or hallucinating. Probably brain death. Yeah. That’s it.” I laughed again, hollow and trembling, eyes burning from salt and disbelief. “I drowned and God said, ‘You know what she deserves? A YA love triangle.’”
The group had reached us by then—women with blankets, an older man with a first aid kit, a younger girl with wide brown eyes who kept crossing herself and whispering something I couldn’t catch. They spoke softly to each other, but the words blurred around me, muffled by the rush in my ears.
Someone touched my shoulder. I flinched.
“It’s okay,” Sam murmured. “You’re safe now.”
But the thing was—safe didn’t feel real anymore.
The cold did. The sand did. The smell of rain and cedar did.
And so did the quiet hum inside me that whispered this was just the beginning.
Because if this was the Twilight world… then maybe I hadn’t escaped my abyss at all.
Maybe I’d only fallen deeper into it.
I sat there for what felt like hours. Maybe it was minutes. Time was slippery here—like the waves hadn’t finished pulling me apart yet. Every heartbeat echoed between my ears, and my breath came shallow, uneven.
The others spoke in low tones nearby. Someone wrapped another blanket around me, someone else offered water, but I couldn’t make myself look up. I just sat there, staring at the dark ocean that had spit me out.
“I hate it here,” I whispered, voice hoarse. “Maybe drowning wouldn’t have been so bad after all.”
The words fell heavy, not as a wish but a fact—like I’d just realized hell wasn’t fire, but fog and sand and too many concerned strangers.
Then a voice—steady, curious—cut through the static.
“What’s your name?”
I froze. My name.
My mind blanked, a single pulse of panic rising in my chest.
What was my name here?
In my world, my father had named me after Jehovah, said it would “protect me from the devil.”
Yeah, well—look how that turned out.
Would that name even mean anything here, in this paperback purgatory Stephenie Meyer had built from her dream journal? My brain—desperate for stability—started muttering without permission.
“She really made vampires into abstinence metaphors. Like, congratulations on inventing sparkly Mormon guilt, I guess.”
Embry blinked, confused. “Uh, what?”
“Nothing,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead. “Just... working through some theological trauma.”
Their blank stares made the silence stretch until I caved.
“Aspen,” I said finally. “Call me Aspen.”
The name surprised me as it left my lips.
It felt right, soft and earthy, but also distant—like it belonged to someone I was supposed to become.
Then I caught the sound of it.
My accent. Slightly Texan. I frowned.
“Thanks, Stephenie Meyer,” I muttered under my breath.
Sam didn’t comment—just nodded, like the name meant something to him, too. “All right, Aspen. Let’s get you somewhere warm.”
The drive blurred by in fragments. I barely remembered how they got me off the beach—someone carrying me, someone else running ahead to start a truck. My eyes burned from the salt, and I kept drifting in and out, catching pieces of conversation through the hum of the engine.
“…Billy’s house is closer…”
“…get Jacob to grab some towels…”
“…what if she’s hurt worse than—”
Each name was a knife of déjà vu.
Billy. Jacob.
I knew those names.
When the truck stopped, the world was darker—pine silhouettes against a gray sky, raindrops peppering the windshield. A porch light flickered ahead, casting a dim halo over a familiar shape of a wooden house. Everything smelled like cedar, smoke, and old earth. It felt… alive.
They half-guided, half-carried me inside. The warmth hit hard. The living room glowed with the amber light of a small fireplace. A faded rug, old leather chair, a stack of cassette tapes beside a stereo. The air hummed with static from an ancient television, a forgotten news anchor mumbling about gas prices and hurricane season. The date stamp at the corner of the screen read: October 5, 2004- fuck- I hope not.
My heart stuttered.
That date. The same day the first Twilight book had released in my world.
I sat on the couch, trembling, wrapped in another blanket. My hands looked wrong—smaller, softer. My reflection in the window caught my breath. My face—rounder, cheeks still full, hair longer and darker than it should’ve been.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered, touching my face.
I stared down at my hands again. They weren’t twenty-six-year-old hands. They were sixteen-year-old ones. The chipped blue nail polish sealed it.
“God’s punishment for being a jackass teenager,” I muttered. “Got it. Real funny.”
The door creaked. A new figure entered—tall, with long black hair tied back loosely, a warmth to his eyes even as he frowned in concern. He looked exactly like I remembered from the movies, only realer, heavier somehow.
Jacob Black.
“Dad said someone washed up at First Beach,” he said, eyes flicking from Sam to me. “Didn’t think it’d be…” He hesitated. “Her age.”
Her age. Sixteen.
I stared back, tongue dry, pulse too fast. I was twenty-six. I had bills, memories, scars. But here—here I was just a confused teenage girl again, trapped in a story I’d spent years mocking.
I leaned back, closed my eyes, and whispered to no one,
“Maybe the ocean didn’t curse me. Maybe it just sent me back to fix what I broke.”
Aspen blinked up at him — Jacob Black, age fifteen. Taller than she remembered him being from the early chapters, but still rounded in the face, still carrying that innocent eagerness that later gets eaten away by heartbreak and transformation.
His flannel looked brand-new, sleeves rolled past his elbows. His voice cracked when he said, “Hey — you okay? You, uh, came out of nowhere. Were you—were you swimming?”
Aspen pushed herself up, dizzy from the cold, still dripping lake water onto the dirt. “Yeah,” she said, then flinched at the sound of her voice — higher, smoother, with that slight Texan twang she hated. The one Stephenie Meyer had given her like a cruel joke.
She swallowed and muttered under her breath, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Jacob blinked. “What?”
“Nothing.” She brushed mud off her jeans, glancing around — every object felt too real. The bark beneath her hand, the distant hum of a boat motor across the bay, the chill that raised goosebumps on her arm. She pressed her thumb against a pebble, hard enough to make it hurt. The pebble didn’t vanish. The pain didn’t fade.
“I’m fine, I think,” she said carefully. “Just… fell in.”
Jacob nodded, his brow furrowed like he was trying to remember if anyone else was supposed to be around. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Aspen tried to keep her composure, but her brain screamed: Forks. La Push. She’s in the book.
“I guess not,” she said softly. “You’re Jacob, right?”
He looked surprised. “Uh, yeah… you know me?”
Aspen almost laughed — know was an understatement. She knew how he laughed, how he broke, how he healed only halfway. She knew the unfairness that would come for him. The wolves. The imprinting. The way readers mocked him for emotions he never asked to carry.
“You’re kinda famous,” she said instead, her lips curling faintly. “In your own way.”
Jacob laughed, uncertain. “I don’t think so. My dad’s famous, though. He’s the guy who knows all the legends.”
Aspen’s heart squeezed. Billy. The storyteller. The keeper of the Quileute truth that had been flattened by the author’s imagination.
She remembered the quiet outrage she used to feel — how all the Indigenous people in this world were mythologized, spiritualized, dehumanized for plot convenience.
“Yeah,” she murmured, “he’s important. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Jacob smiled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re kinda weird, you know that?”
“Yeah,” Aspen said. “I get that a lot.”
They stood in silence for a moment, the sound of waves breaking gently against the shore. Then Jacob said, “So… how’d you end up in the water?”
Aspen opened her mouth — but the truth tangled in her throat. How do you explain falling through fiction?
She reached for logic. “I guess I slipped. But…” she trailed off, eyes narrowing at the forest behind him, the fog curling low like something alive.
“Everything here feels…” she touched the side of a tree, voice soft, “…unfinished. Like a dream someone wrote but never woke up from.”
Jacob frowned. “You sure you didn’t hit your head?”
She smiled sadly. “Oh, I hit something, alright. Just not sure what.”
The smell of driftwood and rain clung to Aspen’s hair. She sat stiffly on the porch steps of someone’s house near First Beach, wrapped in a dry blanket that smelled faintly of laundry detergent and smoke. Through the half-open window behind her, she could hear murmured voices — Billy Black’s low baritone, a woman’s concerned tone, and Sam Uley’s quieter, steadier one.
They were discussing her. The girl from the water.
Aspen’s hands trembled slightly as she looked down at them. The skin was smooth, unscarred, too young. Her nails, short and bitten, looked like they hadn’t seen years of typing, dishwashing, or stress. God, this is my old body. Seventeen, maybe sixteen. How—
She shut her eyes, forcing herself to breathe.
Okay. Okay. Bella came to Forks on January 17, 2005, she thought rapidly. The TV in that living room said January, but the date looked wrong—was that a four? Maybe a five? Maybe I’m a year early?
Her brain started racing, cataloguing canon events the way she once did while rereading fanfiction threads.
Bella’s arrival. Edward’s reaction. The van accident. The meadow. If it was early 2004, Bella Swan didn’t even live in Forks yet. The story hadn’t begun. She’d dropped into the prologue of the world, the waiting room of the timeline.
Jacob sat on the porch railing nearby, pretending not to watch her but failing miserably. His leg bounced, restless energy bottled in a teenage boy’s body that hadn’t yet learned how to contain it.
She could almost hear what he was thinking: Who is this girl? Why does she talk like that? Why does she look so sad?
When their eyes met, he looked away quickly, mumbling, “Dad says you’ll probably stay here tonight, till you get sorted out. Sam’s talking to the sheriff, I think.”
Aspen nodded mutely, her brain splitting between realities — one where she was a 26-year-old woman who had just read about this boy’s pain, and another where she was suddenly his peer again, trapped in a body that wasn’t hers anymore.
“This sucks,” she muttered without thinking.
Jacob tilted his head. “What does?”
“Being… young again.”
He laughed softly, confused. “You say that like you’re ancient.”
“I feel like it,” she said, almost under her breath.
She turned to face him, squinting slightly, trying to remember his timeline — he was fifteen when Bella came. Still pre-wolf, still innocent. Still human. And she had loved him once, in the way teenage girls fall in love with tragic, loyal characters they know can’t win.
Now, looking at him in the flesh, that affection twisted into something more protective. Pained. Maternal, almost. She wanted to keep him safe from what was coming.
Her heart skipped, and she said without thinking, “You—you don’t have a girlfriend, right?”
Jacob blinked, thrown. “What? No.” He laughed awkwardly. “Why, you volunteering?”
Aspen felt her cheeks heat up — not from attraction, but panic. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I just meant—hypothetically—if some new girl came to town, like an old friend or whatever, you wouldn’t, like… fall in love with her right a way, would you?”
He stared at her, mouth twitching in bemusement. “You ask weird questions.”
“I know,” she said quickly, rubbing her face. “Forget I said anything. I just—trust me, don’t fall for anyone too fast. It never ends well.”
Jacob studied her a little longer this time. Her voice trembled like she was half-here, half-somewhere else. “Are you okay?” he asked again, softer.
Aspen tried to smile. “Yeah. Just… processing.”
But inside, she felt the edges of reality humming. Like if she stared too long at the waves or the trees, the textures might dissolve into typewritten words.
She needed to find a way out.
Before Bella arrived. Before the story began.
Her fingers gripped the blanket tighter.
I need to escape this reality too.
Jacob couldn’t sleep.
He lay on the old couch, staring at the ceiling where water stains spread like pale constellations. The rain outside had softened to a quiet drizzle, tapping rhythmically against the windows. Somewhere down the hall, his dad and Sam were still talking in low voices — too low for him to make out the words.
But he didn’t need to hear them to know they were talking about her.
The girl from the ocean.
Jacob turned over, pulling the blanket up to his chin. There was something strange about her — not in a creepy way, more like… she didn’t belong here. The way she’d looked at her own hands, like she was seeing a ghost. The way she spoke, half like a teenager and half like a tired adult.
And her accent — weirdly Texan, but not quite. She talked like someone out of time.
Billy had noticed too. When Sam left for the night, Jacob overheard his dad muttering in Quileute, a prayer that sounded older than either of them. Then, softly:
“Sometimes, spirits come in confused. The water can bring back things it shouldn’t.”
Jacob tried not to think about that. He didn’t believe in spirits — not like his dad did, anyway. But when he closed his eyes, he saw her again, coughing up seawater, her voice cracking with words that weren’t English.
Gracias a Dios. María y sus Milagros.
He didn’t know what they meant, but they sounded like a prayer.
And maybe — just maybe — prayers and ocean ghosts weren’t so different.
When Aspen awoke, sunlight was spilling through the curtains, too bright, too golden for Forks’ usual gloom.
Her head throbbed. Her throat burned from the salt water. But she was alive.
Wasn’t I just… dying? she thought, slowly sitting up. The blanket fell to her lap — heavy and handwoven, with a tribal pattern she vaguely recognized from documentaries and bad souvenir shops. But here, it was real. Soft. Warm. Human-made.
She looked around. The room was small, cozy — cluttered in that lived-in way. There was an old TV set with rounded glass edges, a VCR stacked beneath it, and a calendar on the wall that made her stomach lurch.
January 6, 2004.
Her heart skipped. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
This was pre-Bella. Pre-everything. The prelude year.
Aspen ran her hand through her hair — it felt thicker, longer than she remembered. When she caught her reflection in the window, she froze. Her face. Smooth. Sixteen again.
She laughed once, bitterly. “God really hit the reset button, huh?”
A voice came from the doorway. “You’re awake.”
Jacob stood there with a plate of toast, grinning uncertainly like he wasn’t sure if he should be happy or scared. “You, uh, fainted again last night. Sam said to make sure you eat something.”
“Thanks,” Aspen said hoarsely. “And… sorry if I was weird yesterday. I wasn’t exactly in my right mind.”
He shrugged, coming closer. “You said a lot of weird stuff, yeah.”
Before Aspen could reply, another voice cut in from behind him — teasing, female, confident.
“What, are you her babysitter now, Jake?”
Aspen’s eyes snapped to the doorway — and her heart stopped.
Leah Clearwater stood there, arms folded, a half-smile tugging her lips. Her dark hair caught the morning light, and her expression wasn’t yet hardened by heartbreak or betrayal. She was radiant — alive in a way Aspen hadn’t seen in years of reading about her.
Jacob groaned. “Leah, knock it off.”
“Oh, relax,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re sitting here like a loyal guard dog. What was I supposed to think?”
Aspen swallowed, trying to act casual while her mind screamed it’s Leah Clearwater, she’s still happy, she’s still whole.
She managed a wobbly grin. “Hey, uh… hi.”
Leah tilted her head. “You okay there, ocean girl?”
“Yeah,” Aspen said, voice cracking. “Just, uh, long night.”
“Bet,” Leah said lightly, smirking as she nudged Jacob with her shoulder. “You find the weird ones, don’t you?”
Aspen laughed, nervous and sincere all at once. She couldn’t stop staring — not out of starstruck awe, but grief. Because she knew what was coming.
Leah — bright, teasing Leah — didn’t deserve what the story had in store for her. None of them did.
As Leah turned to grab a towel and head out, Aspen caught sight of the outside world through the window: a flip phone lying on the counter, an unfinished dirt road beyond the yard, a poster advertising a 2003 fishing festival.
Every detail confirmed it.
This was 2004.
The calm before the narrative storm.
And Aspen — a 26-year-old mind in a 16-year-old body — was stuck here.
The walk back through the forest was quiet, the kind of silence that sits heavy on your ribs. Sam didn’t press. He didn’t need to. Aspen’s breakdown still echoed faintly between the trees — every tear, every half-laughed curse at fate.
When they reached the clearing by the shore, she stopped. The air smelled of salt and cedar. Her throat still burned.
“Sam,” she said softly, brushing damp hair from her face. “Thank you.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“For… not judging me. For letting me fall apart without asking why.”
Sam’s expression softened. “Didn’t seem like you needed questions. Just space.”
Aspen smiled faintly, then hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”
He nodded, cautious.
Before she could think, the words tumbled out — rushed, desperate, unstoppable.
“Break up with Leah.”
Sam blinked. “What?”
“You heard me,” Aspen whispered, voice trembling. “Please. I know you care about her — I can see that. But if you stay with her, it’s going to destroy her. She’ll lose everything — her laughter, her faith, her heart. You’ll—”
Her breath caught, panic flickering in her chest. “You’ll fall for someone else. You won’t even mean to. It’s not your fault, but— it’ll ruin both of you.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Sam’s eyes narrowed — not in anger, but in that quiet, assessing way of someone deciding if the person in front of him is sane or haunted. “You talk like you’ve seen it happen.”
Aspen swallowed hard. “Maybe I have.”
He didn’t say anything else. But something shifted between them — a sharp current, invisible and tense. He didn’t believe her, not fully, but he felt the weight in her tone. The truth she shouldn’t know.
They walked back in near silence, that warning burning the air between them.
That night, Aspen sat at Billy’s table, bundled in one of Jacob’s oversized sweatshirts. The house glowed dimly under a single lamp. Billy rolled his chair closer, studying her with eyes that seemed to see too much.
“You got anyone we can call for you?” he asked gently. “Parents? Friends?”
Aspen hesitated. 2005 me didn’t exist yet.
“Not really,” she lied. “I think… they’re probably worried, but I don’t think they’ll find me.”
Billy nodded slowly, glancing toward Jacob, who was fidgeting with a screwdriver. “We’ll keep an ear out.”
Aspen looked at Jacob — so young, still round in the face, still untouched by the heartbreak that would come later.
“Jacob,” she said softly, leaning forward. “Promise me something.”
He blinked. “Uh, sure?”
“Don’t throw yourself at anyone just because they seem like good girlfriend material, okay? You deserve someone who doesn’t make you wait around for scraps.”
Jacob frowned. “That’s… oddly specific.”
Aspen smiled sadly. “Maybe it’s advice from the future.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re weird, you know that?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I know. You already said that you know?!”
Jacob just scoffed with grin of child- because Aspen knew this child would no longer be one as soon as Bella steps into town.
When dawn came, she was still alive — and that alone felt like defiance.
Aspen sat cross-legged on the small bed, notebook open in front of her. The first page was a scrawl of questions:
IS THIS REAL?
If Edward can read minds, how am I thinking freely?
If this is hell, why does it smell like rain and woodsmoke?
Then, drawings — rough, frantic. A silver Volvo surrounded by flames. Stick-figure Aspen and Bella with smug grins holding lighters. A background doodle of Edward with overdramatic fangs, labeled “Sparkle Jesus.”
She sighed, tapping the pen against her lip.
“I’m losing it,” she muttered. “Or maybe I’ve already lost it and this is what hell looks like — me trying to stop fictional men from ruining fictional women’s lives.”
Her laughter broke halfway through.
She flipped the page and wrote:
What if I can change it?
What if I make sure Leah never gets hurt?
What if Bella doesn’t break Jacob’s heart?
What if I stop imprinting before it starts?
The pen hovered, trembling slightly.
But what gives me the right?
Aspen stared at the words until they blurred. The ethics of it all — rewriting people’s lives, even if she knew how they’d end — pressed on her chest.
She wanted to help, but what if helping was another kind of harm?
Outside, she heard a car engine. Peeking through the window, she caught a flash of silver on the highway.
Her blood ran cold.
It was just an old sedan, not the Volvo — but the color alone made her stomach twist.
Aspen closed the notebook and hugged it to her chest.
“I’ll survive this,” she whispered. “I have to. Even if I can’t fix it, I’ll live through it.”
But deep down, a voice whispered:
Fate doesn’t like interference.
And somewhere out there, a mind-reader might already be listening.
The morning was fog-drenched, that soft, dim Forks kind of gray that made the air feel like it was pressing against Aspen’s lungs. She had finished her notebook session sitting cross-legged on Jacob’s front porch, wrapped in a too-large flannel that smelled faintly of wood smoke and something sweet like cedar oil.
On the open page — sketched in steady graphite strokes — was Jacob laughing, head thrown back, while Billy’s amused smile softened every line on his face.
Below it, Aspen had written:
This novel could’ve been love — paternal love, too, in my opinion.
She stared at the words for a long moment. The ink bled slightly from the damp air.
“Hey,” Jacob’s voice broke her daze — warm, earnest, not yet weighted by all the heartbreak that would come years later. “Dad says Charlie found your parents.”
Aspen blinked up, caught between panic and disbelief. “Found... my parents?” she echoed, standing and closing the notebook quickly.
Jacob nodded, leading her down the gravel path, sneakers crunching damp leaves. “Yeah — Charlie Swan. He’s, like, Forks’ sheriff. He and Dad go way back. Said he got a call from someone matching your folks’ names—”
Aspen tried to focus, but the world started tilting in quiet, surreal waves. My parents? she thought bitterly. In this universe, who would they even be? Stephenie Meyer wouldn’t have written them. Not the immigrants from Mexico who came in ‘89. Not the divorced couple. Not her older brother — the one born too early, who couldn’t walk without help, who made her laugh even when things were hard.
The ache hit fast and deep, like homesickness mixed with fury.
Would this world even let them exist?
She half-listened to Jacob’s easy chatter — how Charlie once got stuck in mud outside La Push, how Billy teased him about “city shoes.”
Aspen managed a smile, because that’s what she did best — pretend she wasn’t unraveling in real time.
But then the mood shifted.
Up ahead, Seth Clearwater’s voice rang out bright as he bounded toward them, still all limbs and preteen optimism. But behind him…
Sam stood tense, a hand resting protectively on Leah’s waist. Leah herself wore a brave smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She looked young — not yet scarred by betrayal, her laugh not yet sharp with bitterness.
Aspen froze. The sight felt like déjà vu and prophecy tangled together.
Leah gave Jacob a teasing smirk. “Wow, Jake. Already playing guard dog again? You keeping this one safe too?”
Jacob scratched his neck, sheepish but defensive. “She—uh—almost drowned. Dad said I should keep her company ‘til things get sorted.”
“Of course he did,” Leah teased, but her tone softened when she looked at Aspen. “You okay, new girl?”
Aspen nodded a little too quickly. “Yeah. Just… uh. Trying not to freak out about existing, y’know.”
Seth laughed. “Mood.”
Sam’s eyes, however, stayed fixed on her — the kind of watchful calm that made her skin crawl. He hadn’t imprinted yet, but that storm was already brewing in his soul. Aspen forced herself to smile back at Leah, even as a quiet panic settled in her chest.
Because here they were. The ones destined to lose themselves to the curse of imprinting.
The ones whose hearts the author would break for plot convenience.
And she, standing there in Rachel and Rebecca Black’s old clothes, felt like an intruder in a story she used to romanticize — now realizing just how cruel its foundations really were.
Aspen’s fingers brushed the notebook tucked under her arm, the drawing of Jacob and Billy safe inside. They deserve better, she thought, glancing at Jacob’s warm grin, at Leah’s hopeful smile, at Sam’s quiet guilt. All of them do.
And for the first time since waking in this world, Aspen didn’t just want to escape it —
She wanted to rewrite it.
Jacob and Seth’s laughter rolled like sunlight through the fog. They were sitting on the hood of an old, dented red pickup, trading jokes and stories while Aspen leaned nearby, half-listening as she picked absently at the frayed sleeve of Rachel’s flannel.
Seth—still a gangly preteen with a too-big hoodie and bright, eager eyes—looked at Jacob like he was some kind of superhero. “You think I could fix cars like you one day, Jake?” he asked, voice cracking mid-sentence.
Jacob snorted affectionately. “You can start by not losing the wrench every single time we work on something.”
Seth grinned wide. “I didn’t lose it! Leah moved it!”
Leah, sitting cross-legged on a nearby log, gave a long, theatrical sigh. “Yes, Seth, I used my psychic powers to relocate your wrench five feet to the left.”
Aspen laughed, genuinely—something that felt rare and soft in this strange second life. “You two sound like me and my brother growing up,” she said, then froze a second too long after saying it, the weight of my brother catching in her throat.
Leah caught it but didn’t pry. She gave Aspen a sly smirk instead. “You’re kinda mysterious, you know that? Like… mysterious time traveler girl dropped in from who knows where.”
Jacob chuckled. “She does talk kinda fancy sometimes.”
Aspen rolled her eyes. “I do not. I just—” she stopped herself, nearly blurting I just remember this place from a book series that ruined your reputations. Instead, she tried to pivot, babbling to fill the silence. “—I just read a lot. And maybe think too much about… you know… history. And the future. And how it all ties together.”
Leah arched a brow, intrigued. “Oh yeah? Like what kind of future stuff?”
Aspen swallowed hard. “Like… uh. Climate change?” she said, uncertainly. “I mean, people are already ignoring signs of it now, but it’s gonna… hit coastal tribes hard. The Quileute lands especially—the ocean’s gonna keep eating at the cliffs, and…”
The words fell heavy, unfiltered. She hadn’t meant to sound so specific. The group went quiet.
Jacob frowned slightly. “How do you even know that?”
Aspen’s heart pounded. You’re slipping, idiot. She tried to laugh it off, shrugging too quickly. “Just—just reading the news. Seeing patterns. I think about how stories get told, too. Like how… sometimes people write about indigenous folks but make them all… mystical, violent, or hypersexualized—like they’re not even people, just symbols.”
That made Leah’s expression change—her teasing faded, her eyes sharpening with thought. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “That happens a lot.”
Sam, who had been standing nearby, arms crossed, finally spoke. His tone was calm but wary, like he was testing her every word. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “They make us out to be things we’re not. Either the enemy or the exotic. Never just… real.”
Aspen looked at him, surprised. “Exactly,” she whispered.
Sam’s jaw flexed, but his gaze softened just a little. “Guess I notice it more lately. The way people talk. The way they look at Leah and me like we’re some kind of local legend. It’s dumb.”
Leah smirked up at him. “You are a local legend, Sam Uley. Football captain, future mechanic, honorary hero of Forks High.”
He laughed under his breath and nudged her shoulder. “Senior year, huh? One more season, then college applications. You excited?”
Leah grinned. “Excited to kick your butt at graduation speeches.”
The group’s laughter flowed again, easy and warm—and Aspen stood there, holding her notebook like it was a lifeline. The weight of her earlier slip sat heavy in her chest, but she watched Leah’s smile, Seth’s admiration, Jacob’s effortless humor, Sam’s quiet care.
This was before everything.
Before imprinting. Before heartbreak. Before the Cullens and Bella and destiny tangled it all into tragedy.
Aspen found herself whispering, “You guys deserve to stay this happy.”
Leah glanced over. “What was that?”
Aspen shook her head quickly. “Nothing. Just… I like this moment.”
Sam’s eyes lingered on her a beat longer than felt comfortable, thoughtful and sharp—like he sensed something she wasn’t saying.
And Aspen, feeling her pulse thrum with dread and awe, realized this was the first time she’d spoken her truth—even if no one else yet knew the weight of what it meant.
Aspen sat stiff on a driftwood log, every muscle wired too tight, stomach churning like the waves she’d barely escaped days ago. God, why did I say that? she thought, dragging her hands through her damp hair. “Climate change,” she muttered under her breath. “Nice going, dumbass. Why not start quoting Wikipedia next?”
The others didn’t seem to notice her inner spiral. Leah was mid–rant about her favorite song—something blaringly 2004—with Seth trying desperately to hijack the conversation.
“No way, Jake, you gotta hear ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams,’” Seth said, practically vibrating with excitement. “Green Day is—like—deep!”
Leah rolled her eyes, snapping her gum. “Please. That song is everywhere. You want real music? Try Kelly Clarkson. ‘Since U Been Gone’ is perfection.”
“Kelly Clarkson is your definition of real?” Seth scoffed, his voice cracking adorably.
“Don’t talk trash about Kelly, shrimp.”
Jacob was laughing, leaning back on his hands as he watched the siblings bicker. His easy grin made him look every bit the carefree fifteen-year-old boy he was. Aspen tried to relax—tried to remind herself this was the part of the story she used to wish she could see. The warmth, the friendships, the before.
Except… she wasn’t supposed to be here.
Her pulse thudded against her throat. She could feel Sam’s gaze again, steady and assessing from a few feet away. He was quiet—too quiet. And Aspen could tell. He wanted to ask her something. How do you know about imprinting? she imagined him saying. About us.
Her jaw clenched, and she focused hard on the sand under her shoes.
“Not today,” she whispered in her head, and then, sharper, thinking hard just in case, Edward Cullen, if you can hear me, fuck off.
The thought burned through her like a warning flare—half hope, half defiance.
Sam’s stare didn’t waver, though. His expression stayed neutral, but something flickered behind his eyes—worry, maybe, or suspicion. Aspen’s throat went dry.
Thankfully, Leah broke through the tension like a crack of sunlight.
“Hey, Aspen,” she said suddenly, standing and brushing sand off her jeans. “Wanna walk for a bit? Girl talk.”
Aspen blinked. “Uh, sure?”
Leah smirked. “Good. Because these dorks are killing my brain cells.”
She shot Seth a look. “Don’t let him talk you into his sad-boy playlist, Jake.”
“Hey!” Seth called, grinning.
Aspen followed Leah along the shoreline, the ocean air cold and briny against her skin. The gulls screamed overhead.
Everything felt so real—the way the sand shifted under her sneakers, the chill biting through her borrowed flannel. She still hadn’t gotten used to how young her hands looked again, smooth and unlined. I’m sixteen. Again. The thought made her stomach twist.
Leah glanced over. “You okay?”
Aspen forced a half-smile. “Still kinda… adjusting.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Leah said, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Senior year’s weird like that. Feels like everything’s changing. But also like it’s all gonna stay exactly the same.”
Aspen hummed softly, unsure what to say. Leah looked out toward the waves, her tone softening.
“Sam and I—we’ve been together forever, you know? Since freshman year.” Her smile was small, genuine. “He’s… everything. I know we’re young, but I just know it’s right. Like, this is the real thing. You ever felt that?”
Aspen’s breath hitched. Once. A long time ago, in another life. Her high school love story had started with the same naivety, the same fire—and ended in ruin. She’d built her first heartbreak into her armor, never realizing she’d need to wear it for the rest of her life.
She looked at Leah, at the unguarded hope in her eyes, and her chest ached. “Yeah,” Aspen said quietly. “I’ve felt it.”
Leah smiled, not noticing the heaviness behind her words. “Then you get it. Everyone says we’re too young, but they don’t know Sam like I do. He’s loyal. Good. He makes me feel safe.”
Aspen tried to smile back, but her throat was tight. She knew how this story ended—the crack of betrayal, the imprint, the devastation that would turn Leah Clearwater into something steel-hard and heartbreak-sharp.
“I’m glad you have him,” Aspen whispered instead. “You… you should hold onto that.”
Leah beamed, oblivious to the shadow in Aspen’s tone. “You’re sweet, you know that? You talk weird sometimes, but you’re sweet.”
Aspen laughed softly, hiding the way her voice trembled. “Yeah, well, I’m full of surprises.”
Leah grinned, looping her arm through Aspen’s. “Good. Maybe you’ll rub off on me before senior prom.”
As they walked back toward the others, Aspen glanced up at the treeline—the thick, ancient forest looming like a heartbeat.
She couldn’t help but wonder if somewhere in that dark green maze, the future was already stirring—the wolves, the vampires, the endless loop of love and tragedy.
And for the first time, she wondered if fate could be rewritten.
The sky had already deepened into the violet-blue of early night by the time the group decided to split up. The temperature dropped fast, that autumn chill creeping through the trees and the salt air off the waves. Everyone was yawning and laughing softly, the easy tiredness of a long day lingering like warmth in their voices.
Jacob offered to walk Aspen back toward Billy’s, Seth still talking his ear off about video games, while Leah and Sam trailed behind, murmuring quietly. Aspen caught herself smiling at them—a small, bittersweet ache tightening her chest.
For a moment, she let herself imagine this world without the wolves. Without imprinting. Without fangs and prophecies and pain. Maybe, she thought, they all had friend groups that would have lasted forever. Maybe Leah and Sam would have gone to prom together, gone to college, gotten married by the bay.
But she knew better.
By the time they reached the road leading back to Billy’s house, everyone started to peel away toward their own homes. The reservation quieted, the only sound the ocean humming in the distance. Aspen was halfway to the porch when she realized she wasn’t alone.
Sam was a few yards behind her. Still. Watching.
She turned slowly. His expression was unreadable, but his shoulders were tense. The kind of tension that wasn’t just caution—it was control.
Aspen’s stomach dropped.
“You know,” he said after a long pause, “you talk a lot about things people here don’t usually bring up. The future. The ocean changing. My—” he stopped himself, eyes narrowing slightly, “—our stories.”
Aspen swallowed. She could feel her pulse pounding in her neck. “Just… things I’ve heard.”
“From who?”
She stared at him. His voice was low, even, but she could feel something under it—an edge of suspicion, maybe even fear.
He took a step closer, the gravel crunching under his boots. “Leah likes you,” he said, tone softening slightly, “but I need to know what your deal is. You show up out of nowhere, half-drowned, no record of where you came from. You talk about things you shouldn’t know. You look terrified half the time, and the other half…”
He hesitated. “You look like you’re waiting for something.”
Aspen opened her mouth, closed it again. You can’t tell him the truth, she thought. He’ll think you’re insane. Or worse, right.
So she did what she always did best—she lied through honesty.
“I’m… a witch,” she said finally, voice calm, almost flat.
Sam blinked. “A what?”
“A witch,” she repeated, shrugging lightly, as if that explained everything. “It’s not as exciting as it sounds. I see things I shouldn’t. Sometimes I know things before they happen. It’s a curse, mostly.”
The silence that followed was long enough to make her ears ring.
Sam’s eyes flickered, something like superstition darting behind his skepticism. He shifted his weight. “A witch.”
Aspen nodded once. “Yeah. That’s why I ended up in the water, I think. You probably don’t want me around too long.”
Sam studied her face for several long, unblinking seconds. Then, slowly, he said, “If you’re telling the truth, then stay out of the woods. And stay away from the cliffs.”
She wanted to laugh—oh, if only you knew.
But instead, she nodded. “Deal.”
When Sam finally turned to leave, she let herself breathe again. Her heart was racing, but she could tell—somehow—the word witch had landed just right. It gave him a reason to back off, for now.
Later that night, the house was quiet except for the faint creak of floorboards and the low hum of a faraway radio in Billy’s room. Aspen sat cross-legged on a small twin bed in what used to be Rachel and Rebecca’s room. The walls were covered in old posters—boy bands, a faded Finding Nemo sticker half peeled off near the window. The air smelled like salt and cedar.
A lamp glowed dimly beside her as she opened the small spiral notebook Jacob had given her earlier that day.
She started writing.
Leah Clearwater reminds me of the sun before it explodes.
Bright. Beautiful. The kind of warmth that doesn’t realize how much the world needs it until it’s gone.
She still laughs. Still believes love can fix everything. I wish I could tell her not to let that hope go. That it isn’t her fault when the stars collapse.
Her handwriting trembled slightly. She paused, staring at the words.
The thought hit her then—hard and fast—that maybe by being here, she’d already started changing things.
If this was really October 2004… Bella Swan wouldn’t arrive for almost three months. Edward and his family might still be in Denali. I hope. The story was just waiting to happen. And Aspen, somehow, had fallen into the space before it began.
She dropped her pen, burying her face in her hands. “Maybe saying I’m a witch was a bad call,” she whispered into the dark. “But it worked.”
A long breath.
“Thanks, Steph. Really great writing me into your Mormon vampire fever dream.”
Outside, the wind picked up, the ocean murmuring against the cliffs like a restless god.
And somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.
Sam could feel the damp weight of the mist as he walked along the edge of the cliffs, the tide rolling below him like a restless animal. Patrol was quiet tonight, quieter than it had been since he first changed—since his whole world turned inside out. His mother had begged him to rest, to eat, to stop worrying, but he couldn’t. Not when his senses still hummed like wires under storm wind, not when every scent, every shift of air, meant something.
And now, there was her. The so-called witch. Aspen Milagros Arroyo.
He didn’t buy it.
He’d met plenty of strange people on the rez, outsiders from Forks who thought they knew everything about the old stories. But Aspen wasn’t like them—she looked local enough, and she didn’t act like she wanted attention. Still, she had that distant way of speaking, the kind that made him feel like she knew what was about to happen before it did. It was unsettling. And when she said that word—witch—it didn’t sound like a joke.
Sam rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the heat that came when his pulse got too sharp. He thought about how she’d looked when she said it: calm, not defensive, almost resigned. Like she was tired of trying to explain herself to people who wouldn’t understand.
He huffed out a breath and shook his head.
Witches don’t have names like that, he thought.
Aspen Milagros Arroyo—he’d only learned it because the elders mentioned her in passing when Charlie Swan called to check in about the girl staying with the Blacks. It didn’t sound like something out of a fairytale; it sounded real, old, like it belonged to the wind and saltwater around La Push.
But that didn’t make her less strange.
He crouched near the treeline, eyes narrowing at the faint scent of wolf musk that lingered—his own, fading slow. He didn’t understand what was happening to his life anymore. One minute he was a kid—short, slightly curly-haired, squinting at the world because he couldn’t afford new glasses—and the next, he was the tribe’s protector. He hadn’t even finished figuring himself out, and now there were rules, secrets, monsters.
And maybe witches.
He let out a low growl under his breath, more to clear his head than anything, before heading back toward home.
Aspen woke to the soft hum of morning. The sound of waves breaking on the shore. Jacob’s garage door groaning open. Billy’s radio spilling an old Nirvana track into the salt air. The smell of coffee drifted in, mixed with the metallic scent of sea and sand.
She blinked against the light streaming through the curtains and had that disorienting moment again—the reminder that she was younger here. A body that wasn’t twenty-six, but sixteen, and the ache of that realization was sharp.
She reached for the notebook beside her, the one she’d started filling the night before after Sam’s confrontation. Her handwriting was uneven—tired, haunted.
Leah Clearwater is sunshine. Innocent, hopeful, in love with a boy who doesn’t yet understand what kind of world he’s already tied to. She thinks she’s safe here. She thinks love is something you can trust. Maybe I did, too, once.
Aspen paused, pressing her fingers against the paper. There was a flicker of guilt beneath her ribs. The first ripple of something wrong.
Already, she could feel the butterfly effects humming through the air—Jacob’s hands stained with motor oil earlier than she remembered, Billy’s radio playing a different playlist than she knew it should, even the seagulls seeming louder, more alive. Maybe her being here had shifted things, tilted the story.
She didn’t know if that was good or bad.
The door creaked open, and Jacob leaned against the frame, grinning in that easy way of his.
“Hey, Aspen Milagros Arroyo,” he said, dragging out the syllables.
“Really? That’s your name?”
Aspen froze mid-scribble, her face heating. “Yeah,” she said after a beat, forcing a small smile. “Why? Too fancy for the rez?”
Jacob laughed. “Nah, just sounds like a telenovela character. ‘Milagros!’” He threw his hands up dramatically.
Aspen rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the corner of her mouth tugging up. “Blame my parents. Or fate. Or whoever wrote me into this.”
She said it quietly, almost to herself, but something in the room felt off after the words left her mouth—like the air paused for half a second, listening.
Maybe Meyers really didn’t know a better name.
Or maybe the story was already listening back.
Sam slowed near the tree line again, the morning air cool and wet against his skin. His wolf senses were still humming from patrol; even in human form, everything came through sharper—the sea’s salt, the forest’s damp breath, the trace of motor oil and woodsmoke from Jacob’s garage.
Then something else.
A voice—soft, low, talking to no one.
He followed the sound until he saw Aspen sitting outside Billy’s place, legs folded under her, notebook open on her knees. She was muttering under her breath, not like someone rehearsing something, but like someone venting to the air.
“Seriously, Meyers was such a quack job at developing characters,” she grumbled, flipping a page. “Half of you barely even got arcs… God, I’m sorry—no offense—” She snorted. “Yeah, okay, sorry God.”
Sam froze.
Meyers? Characters?
None of it made sense, but what hit him harder wasn’t the words—it was the wave of emotion that rolled through the link in his blood. A weird, echoing pulse, like someone striking a tuning fork inside his ribs.
It wasn’t mind-reading, not like the telepathy that came with the pack—but it was something else. A resonance. Her emotion bleeding faintly through the air like scent—regret, confusion, and an ache so deep it made his chest tighten.
He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair.
This witch… she’s either losing it or she’s tangled up in something bigger than I understand.
He stepped back before she noticed him, forcing his breathing steady, but the feeling clung to him all morning like smoke.
Aspen tried to shake it off.
She avoided Leah and Jacob as best she could—Leah, who was practically glowing lately with talk about senior year and Sam’s smile; Jacob, who was still teasing her about her “soap opera name.” Aspen wasn’t ready for either of their energy right now. Not when her chest still felt heavy from the weird, electric dream of Sam watching her last night, or from that lingering sense that something had shifted again.
Instead, she let Leah’s parents—Harry and Sue Clearwater—show her around the reservation. They were gentle people, kind in that soft, grounded way that made her feel seen but also… breakable. Sue’s eyes were warm, always watching her carefully, and Harry had a quiet humor that filled the silences.
It was almost too kind. Like they could sense something about her they couldn’t name.
Aspen walked a few paces behind them, trying to keep her expression neutral while her mind raced.
The woods smelled different today. Fresher. Louder. Alive in a way that felt… aware.
Then she caught it—a scent that stopped her mid-step.
Dog.
Her breath hitched. It wasn’t just any dog smell—it was his. The warm, comforting scent of her dog from back home, the one who used to press against her at night when her nightmares got bad, who’d follow her from room to room like a guardian shadow.
Her throat tightened, eyes stinging. That scent hadn’t clung to her before—hadn’t been here yesterday.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Sue asked gently, noticing her pause.
Aspen shook her head quickly. “Nothing. Just… the air smells different.”
Sue smiled faintly, the kind of smile that said she’d lived long enough to recognize when someone was lying to protect their heart.
As they walked on, Aspen brushed her sleeve across her nose again, just to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. The scent lingered, faint but real.
It filled her with warmth—and dread.
Because she couldn’t tell if this was a gift from whatever power watched over her… or the first sign that reality itself was bending to keep her from feeling too alone.
Either way, she whispered under her breath, “I miss you, boy,” and the wind seemed to shift, carrying back something like a sigh.
The night was clear, the air thick with the scent of cedar and salt. Sam sat across from Leah outside a little diner on the edge of Forks—the one she loved because they made the fries extra crispy and never looked twice at two reservation teens sharing a milkshake.
He tried to focus on her laughter, the warmth of her hand brushing his, the way she tilted her head when teasing him. Leah Clearwater, his entire world since they were kids.
And yet—
It hit him mid-laugh, a faint, impossible scent drifting in through the open window.
Not Leah’s soft pine-and-rose shampoo. Not the sharp tang of engine oil from Jacob’s garage nearby.
Something deeper. Wild. Familiar.
Dog.
No—wolf.
Sam’s stomach twisted. His pulse thudded so hard he nearly dropped his burger. The instinctive snarl that lived under his ribs stirred before he could stop it.
“Sam?” Leah blinked, leaning closer. “Hey, you okay? You look like you smelled roadkill or something.”
He forced a laugh, but it came out cracked. “Yeah. Just—headache. Maybe the fryer grease.”
But the scent was everywhere now, flooding his senses like heat. He could feel it crawling under his skin, tangling with the same energy that marked the pack bond—an echo that shouldn’t exist.
Because it wasn’t coming from Leah.
It was her. Aspen.
That same strange hum from earlier, that off-key vibration that made his wolf tense as if recognizing a rival presence.
His hand trembled under the table. Leah caught it instantly, eyes narrowing in worry. “You sure you’re okay, Sam?”
He swallowed, trying to steady himself. “Yeah. Promise.”
But when she smiled and started talking about prom decorations and senior year plans, his mind wasn’t with her anymore. It was back at La Push—by Billy’s house—where that strange girl with the too-knowing eyes and the scent of stormwater had appeared from nowhere, claiming to be a witch.
And now her scent—his instinct—was responding to her like she belonged to their kind.
He didn’t know what that meant. But the thought made him feel sick.
Back in La Push, Aspen had no idea that her scent now pulsed through the forest like a new signal on the pack’s frequency.
She sat in the Clearwater kitchen, cross-legged on the floor with a notebook open and her pen flying as Sue and Harry told her stories of the tribe’s history, their youth, their marriage.
“And he used to bring me the worst coffee in the world when we were dating,” Sue said, giving Harry a playful nudge.
Harry chuckled. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“It was terrible,” she insisted, laughing softly. “But he tried. And that’s what matters.”
Aspen beamed. “That’s so sweet. How did you two know? Like—what made you sure?”
Sue’s eyes went thoughtful. “Knowing isn’t one big moment. It’s a lot of little ones. Trust. Patience. Shared work. Even hard times.” She looked over at Harry with a fond sigh. “We built something out of all that.”
Aspen scribbled furiously, heart swelling at their quiet warmth. Her handwriting trembled, trying to capture it all—
Love as an act of building, not claiming. A love that survives through choice, not instinct.
Then she looked up again, eyes bright. “What do you want most for Leah and Seth?”
Harry smiled, voice low. “That they don’t carry our burdens. That they get to be young and dream a little before the world expects them to save it.”
Aspen felt that like a punch to the gut. She pressed her palm to her heart, whispering, “That’s beautiful,” and wrote it down like it was scripture.
For a second, she forgot where—or when—she was.
Forgot that somewhere deep in the woods, a boy she barely knew was fighting the pull of something ancient that had just woken between them.
The diner’s old fluorescent lights hummed faintly, casting that too-yellow glow over everything. Leah was still talking animatedly about prom themes—her hands slicing through the air as she laughed—but Sam’s world had narrowed to the hollow pounding in his chest.
He could still smell Aspen. That uncanny, storm-soaked scent like sea-salt and fur. It clung to him, to the back of his throat, to the wolf inside that stirred uneasily every time her name crossed his mind. It didn’t feel human. But it didn’t feel like any wolf he’d ever sensed either.
Something in-between.
He forced a breath through his nose, his hand tightening on the table. The Formica was cold, grounding him. Leah tilted her head, curls brushing her cheek. “You’re zoning out on me again, Sam Uley. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
He blinked, forcing a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Just thinking. Senior year. College apps. Life.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “Lame. You’re supposed to be thinking about prom themes, genius.”
He chuckled weakly. “Right, prom. Uh—what’s the theme again?”
“That’s what I’m asking you!” she teased, nudging his foot under the table. “I swear, if you say something cliché like ‘A Night Under the Stars’ I’m breaking up with you right here.”
Sam laughed despite himself, the tension easing a fraction. “Okay, okay. No stars. How about… The Last Wave?”
Leah snorted into her milkshake. “You just want to wear your board shorts to prom.”
The wolf inside him quieted a little at her laugh, at the way she looked when she was happy—bright, alive, hers. For now, he forced himself to focus on that. Aspen could wait. Whatever she was, he’d figure it out later.
That same evening, miles away, Aspen sat at Sue and Harry Clearwater’s dinner table, feeling something too good to be true about the moment.
The light above flickered—once, twice—casting soft shadows across the kitchen walls. It should’ve been unnerving, but Sue’s gentle voice pulled her back.
“Pass the salmon, dear.”
Aspen blinked and handed the platter over. “This smells amazing,” she said honestly.
“Fresh catch,” Harry said with a small grin. “Jacob helped us get it this morning. That boy’s turning into quite the fisherman.”
Aspen smiled, her chest warm. “Yeah. He’s got that ‘I could fix a boat with duct tape and a prayer’ energy.”
Sue laughed softly. “He does. Reminds me of Billy at that age.”
The house was cozier than Billy’s—more lived-in, with lace curtains, mismatched mugs, and the faint scent of lemon cleaner. Where Billy’s dinners were all hearty heat—grease, chatter, the clatter of Jacob’s tools still echoing from the garage—the Clearwaters’ home felt like still water after rain.
Seth was halfway through his second helping of salmon and mashed potatoes, chattering about his friends—some names Aspen vaguely remembered from the books, others new.
“So there’s Daniel, who’s super into skateboards,” he said between bites. “And Kalani, who found this huge tidepool last week. We hang out down by the cove sometimes—when Mom lets me.”
Sue gave him a mock glare. “When your homework and chores done, then you hang out.”
Seth just grinned. “Yeah, yeah.”
Aspen’s pen moved across her notebook under the table:
Seth Clearwater — kind, golden, unbreakably hopeful. A heart not yet touched by grief.
Her chest ached. Not yet, she thought.
The wind outside picked up, brushing the curtains. A wolf howled in the distance—closer than before. The lights flickered again.
Sue’s brow furrowed for a second, but she shook it off, reaching for the butter dish. “Weather’s changing early this year,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Aspen said softly, staring at her reflection in the silverware. The air around her felt charged, humming faintly with energy that didn’t belong here. “Something’s… shifting.”
Sue smiled gently. “You’re a thoughtful one, Aspen.”
Aspen forced a laugh. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
As dinner went on, she watched the Clearwaters' move around each other—Sue touching Harry’s shoulder when she passed behind him, Seth leaning into his father’s arm when he told a joke. There was a rhythm there. Love that didn’t need to be spoken.
And Aspen thought, If love like this exists here… maybe not everything in this world is doomed.
But then the house lights flickered once more—bright, then dark—just long enough for her to see, or maybe imagine, a shadow at the window. Something too tall, too still, watching.
The moment passed. The lights steadied.
But the unease lingered in her gut, curling up like smoke.
The forest breathed around Sam Uley—wet cedar and ocean salt, the pulse of rain on fern. It should have been grounding, familiar. But tonight, the woods felt wrong. She lingered in the air like a curse that had found its way beneath his skin.
That same scent. Ocean and stormlight. Wild and human all at once.
Sam’s paws hit the earth, his chest heaving as he ran along the cliffs. He’d phased hours ago to burn off the restless energy—the instinct that kept circling back to that stranger, Aspen Arroyo. The so-called “witch.”
He’d told himself he didn’t believe her, that he didn’t believe in witches at all. But wolves were real. Vampires too. And whatever Aspen was, she didn’t feel ordinary.
The rain thickened, cold against his fur. He slowed near the bluffs, gaze sweeping over the distant lights of La Push. He could feel her somewhere out there, like static in his bones. Every shift of the wind carried her scent, sharper now, almost luminous.
Get it together, he told himself. She’s just a girl.
But girls didn’t twist the air around them. Girls didn’t make the forest go silent when they cried.
And for a moment—an impossible heartbeat—he thought he saw her shadow in the distance, standing on the shoreline, hair lifted by the wind.
He blinked, and she was gone.
Sam’s pulse slowed. He forced himself to phase back, trembling from the cold. His reflection stared back from a puddle—half boy becoming young man, half creature, neither at peace.
“What are you, Aspen?” he muttered into the dark. “And why does it feel like the storm’s waiting on you?”
That same storm hummed through the window at Billy’s house. Aspen sat cross-legged on the floor of the spare room, a pen in her hand, a cheap notebook open on her lap.
The lamplight flickered faintly, like it was breathing with her.
She wrote in looping, desperate lines:
I don’t belong here.
Maybe this is punishment.
Maybe God thought I’d laugh too much at stories like this, so now I’m living one.
Her handwriting shook. She paused, exhaling slowly, then glanced at the page where she’d drawn earlier—a shadowy figure at the edge of the woods. As she stared, the windowpane darkened. The same shape flickered outside, faint, almost like a reflection answering her.
She froze. “Okay,” she whispered. “That’s new.”
Her pulse raced. She closed the notebook slowly, heart hammering, and looked around the room like she could catch the world in the act of rearranging itself.
It didn’t. But it felt like it wanted to.
She sighed and flipped to a safer page—her “Notes on Jacob Black” list. Writing about him always steadied her.
Favorite color: probably red or black.
Favorite food: anything grilled.
Favorite dessert: those boxed brownies we made last night.
Sports: basketball, biking, fixing things with his hands.
Who he looks up to: Billy, obviously.
Mood: sunshine wrapped in grease and laughter.
Next to the notes, she’d sketched him—smudged charcoal and pencil lines of Jacob sitting in the garage, shirt half-covered in oil, grin wide and easy. There was warmth in it, a kind of uncomplicated joy she hadn’t seen in a long time.
Aspen smiled faintly. “You deserve better than what comes next,” she whispered to the drawing. “All of you do.”
Then the loneliness crept back in.
She could hear the faint sounds of life outside—the buzz of the radio Billy left on, the murmur of the ocean, the laughter of some kids on the street. Kids her age now. Kids who got to go to school, complain about homework, talk about crushes, have futures.
“I’m twenty-six,” she whispered bitterly, “in a sixteen-year-old body, trapped in a YA novel where schools probably have half the funding they deserve because Stephanie Meyer didn’t think past the main character.”
Her chest ached. “God, I want to go home.”
The shadow outside the window shifted again, slow and deliberate, like the world itself was listening.
And in that eerie stillness, Aspen realized something: whatever had brought her here wasn’t done yet.
The Cliffs at Dawn
The morning wind cut across Sam’s bare skin like an omen. The cliffs were still damp with mist, the Pacific breathing in slow, patient waves below. He’d patrolled all night — running until his paws ached and his lungs burned — but nothing chased him harder than that scent.
That witch scent.
It clung to his fur even now. Wild yet almost… familiar. Like someone who shouldn’t exist, but did.
He inhaled, slow and trembling. The forest rustled, not with prey or storm, but awareness. The kind that pressed against his spine and whispered, she knows you’re looking for her. Sam’s hand curled against his thigh as if he could claw the thought out. He had half a mind to rip his own skin open and see if whatever she was had marked him underneath.
The cliffs hummed faintly in the early light — his wolf hearing catching low vibrations like a heartbeat in the rock. The idea struck him mid-breath: maybe this connection could be useful. Maybe if she wasn’t a vampire, if she was something else, that meant they could turn the tables when the Cullen clan came sniffing back around La Plush and his people. Maybe fate had just handed him the kind of weapon no Alpha should ignore.
Still, a small pulse of dread moved under his ribs. Or maybe this will bite you in the ass, Sam Uley. He huffed out a half-laugh, half-growl, watching the sea eat the horizon. He’d find out soon enough.
Aspen – The Next Morning
Aspen woke up feeling edited.
Her notebook sat on the nightstand, open exactly where she’d left it — except the handwriting wasn’t hers anymore. The loops were too neat, the pressure too even. Her notes had grown paragraphs she didn’t remember writing, and the sketches of Jacob now had background details — a twilight sky, faint gold shimmer around him, like her imagination was collaborating with the air itself.
She blinked hard. “Okay, universe. This is creepy.”
Her hand brushed over the paper. The graphite felt warm. Lines of her own thoughts she didn’t remember penning stared back:
“He smells like wet pine and gasoline. He wants to be free of the narrative.”
Aspen froze. She hadn’t written that.
At least, she didn’t think she had.
The shadow outside her window moved in sync with her. She lifted her hand; it lifted too. When she flipped a page in the notebook, it flickered once — her handwriting glitching from her usual messy scrawl to something cursive and foreign.
Stephanie’s world didn’t like her opinions, apparently. Every time she cursed or pointed out a plot hole, reality seemed to twist in protest.
“Least I didn’t use my brother’s name for a love interest, Meyer,” she muttered, scribbling the words with an almost childish ferocity. “Talk about Oedipus complex. You need therapy, girl. Luckily, I have a bachelor’s in psychology.”
Her list from last night stood in sharp contrast to the chaos — sweet, grounded, almost painfully normal:
-
Favorite color: Rusty red (like his old truck).
-
Favorite food: Burgers with too much ketchup.
-
Favorite dessert: Apple cobbler.
-
Sports: Mechanics and basketball.
-
Who he looks up to: Billy, then Carlisle (don’t tell Sam).
-
Favorite hobby: Fixing what’s broken.
Actually- Fuck? What the fuck? I guess this has to be for now... I will rewrite my list about Jacob again later!
And beneath it all, her drawing of Jacob — grease-stained, laughing, hair falling into his eyes — made her chest ache with something that wasn’t fear for once.
Sue called her downstairs for breakfast. Harry was already teasing Seth over cereal choice and Leah was humming to the radio, pretending not to smile when Sue dropped pancakes on her plate. Aspen couldn’t help but notice how alive this house felt — the kind of warmth that had weight.
She’d helped Jacob cook for Billy a few times before, and those dinners always carried the heavy, smoky comfort of survival — laughter wrapped in exhaustion. But the Clearwater table was lighter somehow. Fresh fruit, herbal tea, the soft glow of love that didn’t need to prove itself.
Aspen tucked that image in her mind like a keepsake. The kind of domestic magic she hadn’t known she missed until it was nearly time to leave.
Outside, a wolf howled far too close. The lights flickered once.
Aspen’s fork paused midair.
Reality, it seemed, was starting to breathe with her again.
Perfect continuation point — this scene bridges Aspen’s surreal connection to the world with her return to Forks and the bittersweet, self-aware humor that makes her such a grounded yet uncanny narrator. Here’s the next scene in that same tone and rhythm:
Aspen – The Ride Back to Forks
Aspen spent most of the morning saying her goodbyes.
Sue hugged her twice, muttering that she “looked too pale for someone raised on rez cooking,” while Harry slipped a protective charm bracelet onto her wrist — some quiet blend of tradition and affection. Leah pretended to be annoyed when Aspen thanked her, but the tiny smirk betrayed her. Seth ran to the car twice with “forgotten snacks” just to stall the moment.
Then came Billy’s handshake — firm, grounding, threaded with understanding — and Jacob’s smile, that warm, grease-and-sunlight grin she’d sketched so many times now. It made her chest sting in ways she didn’t want to name.
Before Charlie arrived, one of the tribal council members came by with a puzzled look and two envelopes addressed in looping handwriting. Aspen opened them both, blinking at the numbers.
“A four-hundred-dollar donation to the reservation fund,” one note read, “for saving our daughter’s life.”
The second check was even more bizarre: five hundred to the Blacks “for your kindness and hospitality.”
She stared at the crisp paper like it was evidence.
My fake parents are loaded here?
What did they even do in this version of reality — own a biotech company? Rule a cult? The handwriting looked too polished for middle-class. The checks felt too real.
Sue waved it off, insisting it would go to good use. Aspen smiled weakly, still trying to wrap her head around it. The world was clearly rewriting itself again — this time in her favor, but not without strings.
When Charlie’s cruiser finally pulled up, she felt a pang of gratitude that she hadn’t expected. His presence was steady, the kind that made the earth stop vibrating for a minute. He helped her with her duffel, made an awkward dad joke about “not getting too wild on the rez,” and nodded his thanks to the Clearwaters.
As the car pulled away, Aspen leaned her head against the window. The pines blurred into shades of green and silver. For a moment, she thought she saw the treetops ripple — like brushstrokes being redrawn by an unseen hand.
Forks was coming back into view, but everything looked slightly different. The signs had new slogans. The road curved sharper than before. Even the clouds seemed to move in sync with her breath. The world was editing itself mid-frame, polite but unsettling.
She sighed softly. “God, I miss being twenty-six,” she muttered, voice low enough that Charlie wouldn’t catch it over the hum of the tires.
He glanced at her anyway, brow furrowed. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, forcing a smile. “Just... déjà vu.”
Inside, her thoughts spiraled like static. Focus, Aspen. Get through this. Protect Jacob’s heart, make sure Bella doesn’t lead him on, stop the imprinting mess, and for the love of all things canon, go home.
She risked one more look at Charlie. Up close, the quiet strength in his jawline, the lines around his eyes — he really was more handsome in person.
“Bad,” she muttered to herself. “Bad focus. He’s like… thirty-eight. Also fictional.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “God, I need therapy.”
As they crossed back into Forks, the air changed — heavier, colder, but familiar. The kind of atmosphere that only a story like this could hold. Aspen sat up a little straighter, eyes forward.
“Okay,” she whispered under her breath, fingers brushing the edge of Harry’s charm bracelet.
“Round two, Forks. Let’s see what you’ve rewritten for me this time.”
Aspen — First Day Back in Forks
Charlie’s cruiser rolled up to the little blue house on the edge of town — the one the “plot” had assigned her. It looked like every small-town fixer-upper on a postcard: chipped paint, tired porch swing, and flowerbeds full of weeds doing their best to look intentional.
“Here we are,” Charlie said, voice calm but edged with something he wasn’t saying. “You still got your spare key? I can’t find the one your mom mailed over.”
Aspen blinked. “Yeah. Under the fake rock by the steps.”
He gave her a surprised look. “Still remember that, huh?”
She just smiled thinly, crouching down to flip the painted plastic stone over. The key was there, cold and real in her palm — proof that this world kept track of details, even ones she hadn’t invented.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of dust, dish soap, and lemon cleaner. Bare furniture. Faded curtains. A home that was “hers,” apparently, but unfamiliar enough to make her skin crawl. She tossed her duffel on the couch, checking her reflection in the muted TV screen: sixteen going on seventeen again. Still uncanny.
“Grab what you need. I’ll drive you over to Forks High,” Charlie called from the door. His tone softened. “Look, I know this isn’t easy. Your mom said… after everything last year, you’re still trying to find your footing.”
Aspen froze mid-step. “Everything last year?” she echoed, unsure whether she wanted the answer.
Charlie scratched the back of his neck. “The fights. The… anger issues. I get it. You’ve been through a lot. Your mom thought a change of scenery — steady environment, slower pace — might help.” His gaze dropped. “And, uh… she said I shouldn’t push you to talk about what happened. But if you ever do…”
Aspen forced a small nod, throat tight.
Of course the universe had given her a watered-down trauma arc. A “TV-14 trauma.” The kind that could pass in a YA paperback but not in life.
Similar to my real story, she thought bitterly, just sanitized for Meyer’s delicate sensibilities.
She grabbed her duffel and followed him out to the car, the air outside sharp with dew and pine. As she slung the bag over her shoulder, something inside it clinked — a solid bump she didn’t remember packing. Frowning, she unzipped the side pocket.
Her fingers brushed worn leather. She pulled out her wolf medicine bag necklace, the same one she’d bought at a flea market when she was eight from an Apache-Tsalagi family who told her it would protect her from nightmares. It was still warm to the touch, like it had never left her world.
Inside the same pocket, she found a folded scrap of notebook paper — Jacob’s handwriting unmistakable:
“Aspen — if you ever get bored, call us.
Quil: (360)-555-0492
Embry: (360)-555-2123
Jacob: (360)-555-0975 — pick up or I’ll sic my dad on you ;)”
She snorted out loud, earning a glance from Charlie. “Just… inside joke,” she said, tucking it into her jeans pocket.
Forks High — The Simulation
The school loomed exactly as she remembered from the movies: damp brick, fog creeping like breath over the asphalt, everyone dressed in a palette of “Pacific Northwest Beige.” The parking lot was full of boxy cars and nervous energy.
Charlie gave her a nod before driving off. “You’ll be fine, kid. Just don’t punch anyone this week.”
Aspen raised a thumb. “No promises.”
As she walked through the halls, a strange awareness prickled her. Something’s wrong with them.
Students turned, smiled too quickly, spoke like background NPCs reading from half-finished scripts.
“Hi! You must be new!”
“What class are you in?”
“Oh my God, your hair is so vintage!”
Even their laughs sounded rehearsed.
“Lame,” Aspen muttered under her breath, pulling her schedule from her pocket. “But fine. I’m befriending Jessica. At least she sounds like she’s got caffeine in her bloodstream.”
Jessica Stanley spotted her near the lockers and made a beeline over, flipping her hair with the confidence of a teen sitcom queen. “You’re the new girl from Phoenix, right? Or wherever? You look mysterious — I like it.”
Aspen smiled, because how could you not. “Sure, let’s go with mysterious.”
Jessica looped her arm through Aspen’s like they’d been friends forever. “You have to sit with us at lunch! You’ll meet Mike, Angela, Eric—he’s trying to be edgy this year—and of course Bella Swan, she’s like, the town’s new obsession, she's Charlie Swan's daughter and going move here soon!”
“Great,” Aspen deadpanned. “Can’t wait to meet everyone in Meyer’s Build-A-Friend catalog.”
Jessica blinked. “What?”
“Nothing! Just… talking to myself.”
By third period, Aspen had made it her personal mission to mentally torture Edward Cullen. Every time she caught him glancing her way from two rows over, she thought really loudly:
“Road work ahead? Uh yeah, I sure hope it does.”
“This bitch empty — YEET.”
“It’s an avocado… thanks.”
His jaw flexed once. Just once.
Score one for Aspen.
She grinned to herself, doodling in the margin of her notebook. If this world wanted to flatten her into some “troubled teen redemption arc,” it was going to have to work harder.
Because Aspen Milagros Arroyo wasn’t here to be redeemed.
She was here to rewrite.
Lunch — Forks High Cafeteria
The cafeteria smelled like ketchup packets, reheated fries, and the faint, lingering ghost of floor cleaner. Aspen grabbed her tray and scanned the room — everything muted: gray tables, flannel jackets, rainy-day light spilling through fogged windows.
Her tray wasn’t glamorous: a microwaved bean-and-cheese burrito, a carton of chocolate milk, and an apple that looked like it had been waxed by someone’s grandma. Still, it beat the mayonnaise sandwich the kid ahead of her picked up.
Jessica Stanley waved her over with enough energy to power a wind turbine. “Aspen! Over here!”
At the table sat the full “Forks High Ensemble Cast”:
-
Mike Newton, blond, boy-next-door, halfway through his second slice of pizza.
-
Angela Weber, quiet but kind, picking the olives off her salad.
-
Eric Yorkie, trench coat and too much hair gel, trying to look like he read Nietzsche.
-
And Lauren Mallory, who looked like she charged people for existing too close to her.
Aspen slid in between Jessica and Angela, tray clattering softly.
“So,” Jessica began, leaning in. “We heard you just moved here from Phoenix—”
Aspen raised a brow. “Texas, actually. Not Arizona. I know the rumors say Bella Swan’s coming from Phoenix soon, but we’re not the same brunette with trauma.”
The table went quiet. Mike blinked. Angela’s lips twitched like she wanted to laugh.
“Texas?” Eric repeated. “You don’t sound Texan.”
Aspen tore open her chocolate milk with a wry smile. “Yeah, I’ve been told I sound like if Selena Quintanilla and a YouTube apology video had a baby.”
That broke the tension — Jessica snorted soda through her nose.
“Wait,” Lauren said, frowning. “So you’re, like, what? Hispanic?”
Aspen deadpanned, “Mexican American. You can say that, you won’t explode.”
Angela coughed delicately to change the subject. “So… do you like Forks so far?”
Aspen hesitated, glancing around the cafeteria. The walls felt watchful. The hum of conversations dipped whenever someone mentioned a certain surname.
“Yeah,” she said finally, “it’s quiet. But weirdly, everyone talks about this new family like they’re the royal family of Washington State.”
Mike perked up. “You mean the Cullens?”
“Yeah,” Aspen replied, stabbing at her burrito. “How’re they handling the new-student spotlight?”
Jessica leaned in, voice dropping theatrically. “They’re… different. Gorgeous, smart, never eat. People say they’re, like, models or something. Or homeschooled geniuses. Or royals.”
Eric smirked. “Yeah, totally, royals who drive Volvos and get straight A’s.”
Aspen almost choked on her chocolate milk. Volvo, she thought, half laughing, half horrified. The silver one. The one I doodled burning down the other day.
The conversation moved on to gossip about Forks High’s homecoming game, the winter dance, which teachers were “secretly hot.” Aspen barely followed. She just watched the subtle tilt of things — how conversations seemed to orbit toward one subject, one future absence.
Even now, in October 2004, the air already made space for Bella Swan.
It was like a gravitational pull. Every line of gossip curved subtly toward her name, even when no one had said it yet, or did she didn't care. Three months until she arrives, Aspen thought grimly. And the narrative’s already rolling out a red carpet.
She sighed and rested her chin on her hand.
In her head, she started humming quietly — No Surprises by Radiohead, her mental rebellion soundtrack.
“A handshake of carbon monoxide…”
Then, bored, she switched tracks mid-verse, replacing Thom Yorke’s melancholy hum with old Vine quotes.
“I coulda dropped my croissant!”
“I smell like beef.”
“Zach, stop. You’re gonna get in trouble.”
Across the room, one of the Cullen boys — Jasper — glanced up suddenly, frowning faintly, like he’d felt a ripple in the Force. Aspen smirked.
Let him try to read that emotional cocktail, cowboy.
Angela offered her a gentle smile as she picked at her salad. “You seem… different. Not like most people here.”
“Good different or bad different?” Aspen asked.
“Just… different.”
Aspen met her eyes, the faintest warmth flickering through her exhaustion. “Yeah. That’s kind of my brand.”
Jessica kicked her playfully under the table. “Welcome to Forks High, Texas. You’re gonna make things interesting.”
Aspen’s smile sharpened. Oh, she thought, you have no idea.
After school, the rain had stopped just enough to let Forks breathe again. The pavement steamed faintly, the air thick with that smell she was already learning meant everything here — wet pine, wet earth, wet everything.
Aspen trudged along the sidewalk with her backpack half unzipped and her notebook jammed inside at an odd angle. She’d tried to say goodbye to people when the bell rang, really — she’d smiled, waved, even gave a faint “see ya” to Jessica, but it came out sounding like she was about to fight someone.
“Ugh,” she muttered under her breath. “I forgot how exhausting it is to be nice all day.”
She’d also gotten lost five times.
Once trying to find English (ended up in the gym), twice looking for the restroom (found the nurse’s office instead), and once trying to open a supply closet she thought was a classroom.
High school again.
The fluorescent hum, the smell of pencil shavings and Axe body spray.
It was almost comical — almost.
“God, my schedule sucks,” she said aloud to no one. “In my real life I had dual credit. I was already taking college psych, not sitting through Geometry B.”
The wind picked up, sending her hair into her face. She squinted down the street, wondering vaguely if she even had a driver’s license here. Probably not. Probably one of those ‘revoked due to mysterious anger issues’ situations. Charlie’s half-joking comment about her “troubled teen” record came back to her, and she groaned.
“Well, walking it is,” she said, stuffing her hands into the borrowed jacket Billy had given her.
Forks looked too perfect again. Like the set decorators had just come through with fresh moss and gray light. But as she passed the “Welcome to Forks” sign, something flickered. The lettering seemed… different for a second — bolder? Or older? Then it snapped back like static on a VHS tape.
Aspen blinked hard. “Okay. No. I saw that.”
Then again at the corner near Newton’s Outfitters, a road sign momentarily read Olympic Hwy North, est. 1999 before glitching to Highway 101, est. 1984. She rubbed her temples. “Great. I’m in a haunted fanfiction.”
The air smelled strange too — sharper, like metallic mint layered with something syrupy. Aspen stopped walking, realizing the scent wasn’t weather at all.
“Okay, so like—” she muttered to herself, pulling out her notebook. “If vampires are supposed to smell ‘sweet’ to humans but disgusting to wolves, what does that even mean? Like… vanilla gone bad? Rotting sugar? Cheap perfume over a corpse?”
She scribbled:
‘Sickeningly sweet’ = overbearingly chemical, like the last sweat of being human mixed with melting caramel air freshener, corpse flower, ammonia tang, spoiled candy apple. A little vanilla. A lot wrong.
Her pen hesitated as her brain filled in the rest of the image — that impossible sweetness turning sour, the air around her feeling almost pressurized.
That’s when she felt it.
A faint prickle at the back of her neck, like someone’s attention sliding across her thoughts. It wasn’t words — more like awareness, the wrong kind. Cold, observant. She froze.
“…No,” Aspen whispered. “No, you don’t get to eavesdrop.”
Her mind flared with panic — images, words, anything she could weaponize to drive him out.
She started mentally shouting Vine quotes.
“It’s Wednesday, my dudes.”
“Look at all those chickens!”
“I thought you were American!”
The pressure faltered for a moment. Aspen could almost feel the confusion, like someone recoiling.
“Yeah,” she muttered darkly. “That’s right. Don’t come for me, Volvo boy.”
The presence faded, but the back of her neck stayed cold for blocks. She kicked a loose rock into the ditch, huffing. “God, I hate this place. I hate this author. I hate this stupid smell metaphysics.”
The trees on either side of the road seemed to lean in closer as she passed, the forest holding its breath.
Aspen clutched her notebook tighter.
The paper felt warm — too warm.
When she looked down, her handwriting from earlier had smudged slightly, as if something unseen had touched it.
“Okay,” she whispered. “That’s not good.”
The rain began again, light and steady, washing the scent — and that invisible attention — away.
Still, somewhere far off, maybe in that big, white house in the woods, someone’s golden eyes opened and narrowed.
Edward had heard every mind in Forks at least once.
They came in like channels on an old radio—some static-filled, others clear as glass. But this girl… Aspen… she was something else entirely.
At first, her thoughts sounded like white noise, a shimmer of emotion without clarity, as if her brain was running three frequencies at once. Beneath it all was rhythm—music, laughter, and sharp commentary that made his head ache and… oddly enough, amuse him.
“…seriously, the last sweat of humanity mixed with fermented candy apple and corpse flower, what the hell does that even smell like—”
He blinked midstride across the parking lot, freezing as that thought lanced through him.
She wasn’t just thinking random nonsense. She was analyzing vampire scent. His scent.
And then—like a burst of static clearing—he caught her again.
“I am quoting Shrek. Out loud. Deal with it, Edward.”
And true enough, her voice—low, humming, carrying just enough tune to sting his composure—cut through the gray drizzle:
“I could be fake
I could be stupid
You know I could be just like you…”
Three Days Grace. Of course. He actually stopped walking, jaw tightening, trying to decide whether she was telepathically mocking him or just unknowingly tormenting his immortal sanity.
The strangest part wasn’t her thoughts. It was the way her emotions spiked and dimmed like light through fog—laughter, sadness, defiance—alive in a way his world hadn’t been in decades.
She felt real. Too real for the static dream Forks usually was.
Aspen, meanwhile, had no idea she’d just given a vampire a minor existential crisis.
The walk home was long but grounding—the air thick with moss, cedar, and that faint metallic sugar smell she was now certain was vampire residue. Forks seemed even quieter than usual, though.
Too quiet.
As she turned down her street, the cracks in reality started showing again.
The sign for Forks Timber Co. now read Forks Logging Mill – Est. 1982.
She remembered it saying 1974.
A house that had been yellow yesterday was now gray-blue.
Her shadow flickered wrong for half a second, like a skipped frame in a movie.
Aspen rubbed her temple. “Cool, I’m either hallucinating or living in an author’s unfinished draft.”
At her doorstep, she crouched to grab the fake rock key—still exactly where it should be—and slipped inside.
The air smelled faintly like lemon cleaner and damp paper, like the set of a home that existed only for the camera.
The house felt wrong in subtle ways: family photos slightly different, her bedroom rearranged—same furniture, different positions. Like someone was “optimizing” the layout.
Aspen tossed her duffle down, sighed, and tied her hair back. “Okay, Forks Sims edition, let’s make dinner before the Stepford parents return.”
She put on music—something human and grounding. Paramore, 2000s nostalgia edition.
As she chopped vegetables, the sense of being watched prickled her skin. Not danger exactly—just the eerie awareness of the world noticing her noticing it.
The lights flickered once.
Her handwriting on a note she’d left earlier—“Buy oat milk”—was subtly changed to “Buy milk.”
Like the universe was editing her diet to be more in line with Twilight’s grocery realism.
She laughed quietly to herself, though her voice trembled.
“Yeah, Stephanie. Good luck controlling me. I survived Texas, grad school, and the internet.”
Then, quieter still:
“…and if Edward Cullen’s still tuning in, I hope you like sarcasm with your bloodlust.”
Outside, the forest rustled—listening.
And somewhere between the static and the sound of rain, a vampire’s brow furrowed again.
Aspen wasn’t used to quiet houses.
In her real life, silence usually meant tension—someone fuming behind a closed door, or the hum of avoidance thick in the air. But this quiet felt different.
Artificial.
Like the house was holding its breath.
The kitchen was stock-photo perfect: pale yellow walls, Formica counters, linoleum floors that glistened under dim light. Everything smelled faintly like lemon disinfectant and wood smoke. She half-expected a sitcom laugh track to start when she opened the fridge.
Inside, the choices were bizarrely on-brand for small-town Forks, circa 2004: cheap baloney, white bread, two percent milk, and a suspiciously perfect head of iceberg lettuce. No oat milk. No spices beyond salt.
She wrinkled her nose. “No wonder Bella was so pale. Forks doesn’t believe in flavor.”
Still, she worked with what she had—dicing some canned chicken, rinsing off lentils she’d found in the back of a cabinet, and cracking eggs into a small skillet.
She hummed quietly, half to herself, half to keep the silence from settling too heavily.
“High protein, no red meat, lactose-free—because apparently even fictional universes can’t handle my digestive issues.” She snorted.
Her brain wandered as she cooked.
If the Cullens drink animal blood, why not just become vet techs? she mused. They could take a pint from a dying deer or sedated animal. Ethical and convenient. Carlisle could have been saving the planet instead of doing ER cosplay.
She stirred the lentils with too much force, laughing under her breath. “Imagine Edward in scrubs, trying to explain to a farmer why his cows keep passing out.”
Then her thoughts twisted, darker.
Wait—so my dad is alive here. And married. To my stepmom.
She paused mid-chop, knife hovering over the cutting board.
Her dad—Charlie Swan’s doppelgänger dad, her brain supplied automatically. In real life, she barely talked to him unless her mom guilt-tripped her into it. But in this world, she lived with him.
And she had a stepmother.
Would she be kind?
Beautiful?
Real?
The thought made her chest tighten. Aspen leaned on the counter, staring at the steam rising from the pan.
Her reflection in the window looked faint—glitching, like static interference.
And in the reflection’s glassy shimmer, Edward’s memory flashed again—sharp jaw, gold eyes, cinematic lighting courtesy of the world itself.
Aspen rolled her eyes. “Sure, he’s handsome,” she muttered. “But goddamn, Bella, he never even let you grow. The man’s an immortal helicopter boyfriend.”
The sound of a car pulling up broke her out of it.
Headlights swept across the window.
Her body stiffened automatically—the muscle memory of bracing for something uncertain.
The front door opened with mechanical smoothness.
“Sweetheart!” came a woman’s voice—warm, lilting, too even. The cadence of a TV mom.
Aspen turned. The woman who stepped in wore jeans and a pink knit sweater, her hair curled perfectly, makeup subtle but flawless.
Her eyes, though, were strange. When Aspen looked directly at her, the irises flickered slightly, as if the color hadn’t rendered all the way.
“Hey, honey,” she said again, smile too wide. “How was your first day back?”
Before Aspen could respond, her father stepped in behind her—the father figure of Forks, flannel and beard, kind eyes that didn’t quite focus right.
He smelled faintly of cigarettes and rain, but… flat. Like the scent itself had been programmed.
“Fine,” Aspen said slowly. “It was… fine.”
“That’s great,” her stepmother chirped. “Dinner smells lovely!”
Her voice glitched for a fraction of a second—“Dinner smells love—ove—lovely!”—before correcting itself.
Aspen froze.
She blinked. Neither adult reacted.
Her father took off his hat, set it down, and clapped her shoulder in what should have been a comforting gesture. It was light, almost hollow. “Good to see you cookin’, kiddo.”
She smiled tightly. “Yeah. Guess I picked it up somewhere.”
They sat down at the table—perfectly symmetrical, like a Norman Rockwell painting. Her stepmother folded a napkin. Her father murmured something about work at the station.
The clock on the wall ticked out of sync—one beat lagging behind reality.
Aspen stared at them.
They looked… close enough to real. But their movements were delayed, like someone else was pulling the strings. Their smiles never quite reached their eyes.
Are they placeholders? NPCs? she thought, stabbing a lentil absently.
Did Meyer forget to write them depth?
Her father laughed suddenly, a sound two seconds late.
Her stepmother joined in—her pitch too perfect, too practiced.
Aspen’s stomach turned.
It wasn’t that they were unkind. It was that they were almost human.
And when her stepmother looked at her again, her smile trembled. Just slightly.
“Eat up, darling,” she said softly. “You’ll need your strength… for what’s coming.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
Aspen blinked, pulse thudding.
“What?” she whispered.
But the woman just smiled again, that glitchy, shimmering smile.
“I said—you’ll need your strength for the week ahead.”
Except Aspen knew—she hadn’t.
The universe was still rewriting itself.
And now, it was starting to talk back.
Dinner blurred together in that soft, humming way dreams do before they sour.
The conversation was low, suburban, normal—or trying very, very hard to be.
Her stepmother talked about her “shift” at the hospital, voice like warm butter and perfume so thick Aspen could taste it when she breathed.
The woman was too polished for Forks. Bottle-blonde hair curled perfectly at the shoulders, French-tipped nails, faint scent of surgical soap beneath the Chanel.
Expensive. Sanitized. Pretty in a way Meyer’s world considered safe—that very 2000s brand of woman who was allowed to be ambitious, but only if she smiled about it.
Across the table, her “dad” was something else entirely.
Dark hair, tanned skin, jaw dusted with scruff—like someone had tried to merge a Hallmark sheriff with a telenovela heartthrob. The resemblance to young Fernando Colunga was uncanny, right down to the thoughtful eyes and overworked hands. His faint Mexican accent wasn’t the lazy Forks drawl at all; it lilted with warmth and fatigue, the kind that only comes from carrying entire families on your back.
Too good-looking to be my parents, Aspen thought, chewing absently on lentils. This world really is written by someone who cast everyone in a CW pilot.
Her stepmother laughed softly at something about hospital gossip—some doctor leaving his wife for a nurse—and Aspen just stirred her food. The laughter hit her ears like glass.
Of course. Infidelity. Right on brand for Meyer’s moral soap opera.
The weirdest part wasn’t what they said. It was how flat it sounded.
Even when her dad sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, it was like watching a memory on loop.
The words didn’t land; they drifted through the air and disappeared.
She ate slowly, studying them. The fluorescent light flickered once—hard enough to make the whole scene stutter for half a second—and then the room returned to its soft, fabricated glow.
Her stepmother smiled across the table. “Eat up, Aspen. You’ll want to start strong tomorrow. Big second day.”
Aspen raised an eyebrow. “You say that like I’m joining a cult.”
The woman laughed. “Oh, sweetheart. You’re so funny.”
It was the kind of laughter that was meant to end a conversation, not encourage one.
Aspen swallowed another mouthful of lentils, forcing herself to nod. “Yeah,” she muttered, “hilarious.”
Later, her stepmother kissed her cheek—warm but somehow empty—and her dad stood in the doorway, eyes soft but tired.
“’Night, kiddo. Don’t stay up too late.”
“Sure,” Aspen said, halfway through shutting her bedroom door.
Through the thin walls, she heard the muffled murmur of their voices.
Her stepmother said something she couldn’t make out.
Then her father’s sigh, low and resigned:
“I just hope she doesn’t run away again in the middle of the night.”
Aspen froze mid-step.
The words curled down her spine like a cold fingertip.
Run away again?
So, this version of me is a runner. That’s great.
She flopped onto her bed, staring at the ceiling. The thought whispered back.
If I die here… does that mean I die there, too?
No answer. Just the steady buzz of the world pretending to be real.
When she finally sat up, she realized her “room” didn’t fit the narrative tone of Forks at all.
It wasn’t soft beige or girlishly plain like Bella’s—it had personality.
Chocolate-brown walls, offset with candy-red accents.
Movie posters: But I’m a Cheerleader, Practical Magic, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Wedding Singer.
Every title screamed rebellion, individuality, feminine chaos.
Her comforter was a faded rose pink, dotted with tiny, stitched moons.
The shelves were cluttered with mismatched candles and old notebooks.
It felt… hers. Or at least, written from some version of her that refused to fit into Forks’ gray morality.
“Yeah,” she muttered to the empty room. “Definitely the ‘lesson character.’ The ‘don’t be too worldly, or you’ll end up sad’ girl.”
Her laugh came out soft, half-tired.
“Guess I’ll take that over being Bella Swan’s moral compass.”
She changed into pajama pants and sat cross-legged on the bed, phone in hand.
Jacob’s note still smelled faintly like motor oil and pine. His handwriting was messy but real—ink smudged at the edges.
Home lines and cell numbers. For me, Embry, Quil.
Aspen smiled despite herself. At least someone here feels real.
She typed out a quick text to Jacob:
hey gearhead, thanks for the note. survived forks high. no major vampire attacks. u alive?
Then she set her phone down, staring at the red glow of her bedside lamp.
Somewhere outside, a wolf howled—too close.
The sound shivered against the walls like static feedback.
Aspen exhaled. “Yeah,” she whispered to herself. “This is definitely gonna be a sleepless night.”
Aspen tugged on the pink pajama set with a sigh that sounded like it came from a forty-year-old ghost instead of a sixteen-year-old girl.
The fabric was soft cotton—comfortable, at least—but the shade of bubblegum pink was loudly suggestive of someone who “wasn’t like Bella Swan.” The tank top was trimmed with lace and the shorts had tiny satin bows.
It screamed flirty but punishable, the kind of outfit the narrative itself might label as “borderline harlot” because heaven forbid a girl have thighs in Forks, Washington.
“Guess I’m the scandalous one,” Aspen muttered to her reflection.
“Thanks, Meyer.”
She leaned toward the mirror, frowning.
No acne. None. Her skin was poreless, dusted with freckles instead—like someone had airbrushed her into relatability.
“That’s pathetic,” she whispered. “I had to survive five years of cystic hell, and this universe just… erased it?”
Her thick, wild curls framed her face, streaked with chunky blonde highlights straight out of a 2004 shampoo commercial. At least that part of her was untouched—too loud, too messy, too real to flatten.
But the rest of her?
Short. Tiny. Four-foot-five with a spoon-shaped body that looked like a caricature of adolescence—hips forming, shoulders softened, the faintest stretch marks on her thighs.
She frowned harder. “Great. Meyer’s version of a ‘cute Latina girl.’ Short, curvy, baby-faced. Of course.”
Her reflection didn’t answer, but the silence felt taunting.
Behind her, the wall was chaos: posters of The Crow, cut-outs of Freddie Prinze Jr., Chad Michael Murray, and Enrique Iglesias—each kissed with lip-gloss hearts. It was like stepping into a fever dream of her teen self, well a slight version of teen self of 2004 era, the one who thought glitter eyeliner could heal trauma.
Aspen sighed and rubbed her temple. “I survived my first puberty once. I do not need a sequel.”
Her gaze drifted toward the notebook on her desk—the one she’d been keeping since she landed in this off-brand Twilight simulation. Its pages fluttered slightly, though the window was closed.
When she flipped it open, her stomach dropped.
There was a new section that hadn’t been there before.
Aspen’s Secret Thoughts.
The handwriting was hers, but softer, loopier, almost lovesick.
Sometimes I think about Jacob’s smile when he’s focused on fixing something. The way the grease smudges his cheek. The way his laugh makes me forget how cold this place feels.
Maybe we were meant to find each other again, somehow.
Aspen’s jaw slackened. “Oh, hell no.”
She flipped through the pages faster, and each one shimmered faintly—new words crawling in at the edges like silver ink forming from nothing.
I hope Jacob and I end up together. I think I’m falling for him again.
Her stomach twisted. “Meyers, I swear to God, if you’re trying to turn me into the Jacob backup plan—”
Right on cue, her phone buzzed.
Jacob’s name lit up the screen.
Gearhead: hey, u made it home? glad forks didn’t eat u alive lol
Aspen stared at it. Her anger cracked a little; the kid’s earnestness was impossible to hate.
Still, she typed quickly:
Aspen: alive and still aggressively not ur love interest. just ur friend, ok?
She paused, then added:
Aspen: also, tell Embry to stop calling me “witch girl.” i’m charging him royalties.
Jacob replied with a single emoji—😂—and then, u sure ur ok?
Aspen exhaled through her nose, eyes flicking back to the cursed notebook. The new sentences shimmered faintly, resisting her reality like a living script.
“I’m not playing this game,” she muttered, pressing her palm flat over the ink as if she could smother it. “I’m not here to fall in love. I’m here to fix the plot. Or at least… survive it.”
The text rippled beneath her hand, and a faint ding echoed through her phone again—Jacob’s message lighting up:
Gearhead: see u soon, witch girl 🌙
Aspen glanced at her reflection one last time.
Same freckles. Same curls. Same exhaustion.
“Yeah,” she whispered, “see you soon.”
Outside, a streetlight flickered twice and died—like the world itself was holding its breath.
Aspen’s bathroom filled with the warm fog of her shower, the air heavy with lavender and drugstore vanilla body wash — that cloying kind that claimed “Made for sensitive skin!” in loopy pink font. The mirror was streaked, the overhead light flickering slightly, a perfect humdrum 2004 ambiance. She rubbed moisturizer into her cheeks — no acne, just freckles — muttering bitterly to herself, “Guess Meyers thought blemishes weren’t cinematic enough.”
She brushed through her thick curls, the ends clinging to her cotton pajamas. At least they didn’t straighten me, she thought, relief mixing with defiance. She sectioned her hair, deftly braiding it into two soft ropes that framed her face before wrapping a satin scarf over it, tying the knot with practiced care. The small, tangible ritual grounded her — something from her real life that Twilight hadn’t erased.
She could already hear the faint static buzz of the Cullens’ house through the walls — or maybe that was her paranoia. Either way, it amused her to imagine them all listening, stiffly polite, as she picked out a song that would absolutely ruin their eternal, sterile calm.
Roland by Interpol thumped faintly through her earbuds, bass low, her fingers tapping against her vanity in rhythm. “This one’s for you, Eddie boy,” she murmured, swaying slightly, brushing her teeth to the beat. The tempo mirrored her heart — steady, alive, defiant.
She could almost picture Edward, brooding outside her window, trying not to grimace at the pulsing notes that didn’t belong in Forks’ monochrome world.
She smirked. “Can’t read my thoughts now, huh?” she whispered, knowing full well he probably could, but that made the game better.
As she rinsed her face, she began imagining more vividly — Edward tied to a stake in some Salem-esque clearing, the wolf pack prowling in a tight circle, their eyes glowing gold in the embers. He tries to speak, she thought, but I just hush him — “Eddie boy, your song will be I Will Treat You Good by Sparklehorse.”
She smiled wickedly in the mirror, teeth glinting under cheap fluorescent light. “Soon enough,” she whispered, “you’ll get the reference too.”
And with that, Aspen crawled into bed, hair wrapped, skin clean, heart thudding to Interpol still echoing faintly in her mind. Her breathing slowed. Her lips parted in a sleepy smirk. Then — a tiny, utterly human snort escaped her as she drifted into dreamless sleep, the sound echoing absurdly loud in a world of predators with perfect hearing.
Even the night outside seemed to hesitate — Forks gone quiet, except for one very mortal girl who refused to fit the script.
Aspen woke up feeling like her bones were made of sandpaper and existential dread. It wasn’t even the good kind of tired — not the stayed-up-all-night-writing, soft melancholy type — just the crushing fatigue of having to re-live adolescence. The alarm clock blinked 6:47 a.m. in obnoxious red numbers. “God,” she groaned, “I’m in hell’s public school again.”
She stared at her reflection: curls flattened under the satin wrap, freckles smugly dotting her cheeks, pajamas wrinkled from a night of rolling around. There was no coffee strong enough to fix the emotional whiplash of remembering she was twenty-six trapped in a sixteen-year-old’s hormonal nightmare. Still, she brushed her teeth, undid her braids, and tugged on jeans and a pink sweatshirt — something “normal” enough to blend, “off” enough to annoy.
By third period, her patience was gone. The teacher, a man in his fifties with permanent coffee breath, was lecturing the class about “decency” after dress-coding a girl for showing “too much shoulder.” Aspen watched, unimpressed, as he ignored a senior boy making comments from the back row. When she raised her hand and asked, “So why not dress code him for having a mouth?” he blinked like she’d just spoken Latin.
“Miss Arroyo—” he started, but Aspen cut him off with venom disguised as calm:
“If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from you. Matthew 18:9.”
A pause. Then, sweetly: “Maybe you should reread it before policing a student’s collarbone.”
The silence was deafening — until someone near the back snorted. It wasn’t human. Too sharp, too deliberate. Aspen glanced over her shoulder and caught a flash of inhuman gold eyes — Jasper? Emmett? One of them was definitely trying not to laugh. The teacher, meanwhile, turned a dangerous shade of pink and sent Aspen straight to detention.
“Totally worth it,” she muttered, grabbing her bag.
By lunchtime, the energy that fueled her righteous fury was gone. Aspen slumped at a table with Angela Weber, who was softly smiling over her sandwich. Angela was calm in that comforting, bookworm way — like warm sunlight through a window. They talked about To Kill a Mockingbird, or tried to; Aspen’s brain was split between half-asleep munching and half-panicking that saying anything could butterfly-effect the Twilight timeline.
Angela tilted her head. “You okay? You look kind of… haunted.”
Aspen blinked slowly. “Just tired. You ever think about how weird cafeteria light is? Like it’s too bright for food?”
Angela laughed politely — clearly chalking it up to Aspen being “quirky.” Aspen smiled faintly, deciding she liked Angela too much to freak her out.
Meanwhile, at the Cullens’ table, she could feel their stares like static under her skin. Edward, aloof, looked like he was pretending not to care but absolutely was listening to every heartbeat. Alice’s curious gaze flicked toward her occasionally — calculating, like Aspen was a new shiny toy she couldn’t read properly. Emmett, definitely the one who’d laughed earlier, looked amused every time Aspen rubbed her temples. Rosalie was gorgeous and glaring, likely offended that a mortal dared take up narrative attention.
Only Jasper seemed… unsettled. His eyes lingered too long. Empathic vampires, Aspen remembered. He was probably tasting her emotional cocktail of exhaustion, disgust, and sarcasm — a recipe that must have felt like drinking static through a straw.
When she caught them staring one too many times, she leaned back in her seat and said, just loud enough, “If you’re gonna keep watching me, at least buy a ticket.”
Angela froze mid-bite. The Cullens went statue-still — except Emmett, who barked out a laugh before Rosalie smacked his arm.
Aspen smirked to herself, stabbing at her salad. “Guess lunch is live television for the undead.”
By the end of the day, detention loomed, her limbs were heavy, and her thoughts ran bitter: You’d think being in a fantasy world would feel better than this. But it’s still high school. Still the same noise, rules, and boys who think they’re gods.
Only now, the gods were actually real — and apparently watching her like their favorite soap opera rerun.
Detention in Forks High wasn’t the cinematic kind where people bonded and learned life lessons — it was more like slow, collective decay under the hum of fluorescent lights. The clock ticked like it hated everyone equally, the rain drizzled outside like a bored soundtrack, and the vice principal — a wiry woman named Mrs. Talbot — sat at her desk pretending to grade papers but clearly on the edge of falling asleep.
Aspen sat near the back, half-slouched over her homework, pencil tapping in rhythm with her exhaustion. Around her, the other inmates of after-school purgatory were trying their best to make the situation bearable. Someone up front was quietly smuggling sour gummies from their hoodie pocket. Two girls were whispering about someone’s breakup.
Then came the freshman clique — a self-proclaimed underground economy of chaos. They ran a miniature smuggling operation out of the back row, dealing contraband items like they were trading state secrets. Aspen had to give them credit: the kid with the mushroom haircut was a mastermind. Paper airplanes, folded with precision, were their communication network. Every few minutes, one would sail across the room, landing perfectly on a desk before anyone could react.
Aspen caught one with practiced ease.
Inside:
🌀 “Bubblegum 4 2 pencil toppers?”
She grinned, scribbled “Deal. Add one Pokémon card and it’s a yes.” and sent it gliding back when Mrs. Talbot turned another page of her book with the enthusiasm of a corpse.
For a while, it was almost fun. Aspen forgot about reality bending, vampires, and the fact that she was living inside a YA morality play. The kids were giggling, passing notes, flicking rubber bands. Aspen made three perfect paper planes and hit the trash can dead center each time. The freshman crew started cheering her quietly — like she was their cool older sister who didn’t rat anyone out.
Then the door opened.
The energy in the room shifted — subtly, but enough that Aspen’s body tensed. Cold air swept in, cutting through the cozy chaos.
“Sorry I’m late,” a voice said smoothly. Too smooth. Like velvet and steel.
Aspen’s heart sank.
Mrs. Talbot blinked awake just enough to wave the newcomer in. “Just take a seat, Mr… Hale, isn’t it?”
Of course.
Jasper Whitlock Hale — golden hair perfectly disheveled, posture painfully composed — stepped into the fluorescent gloom like a misplaced angel. He gave Mrs. Talbot a polite nod before his eyes, that unnerving liquid gold, flicked across the room and landed right on Aspen.
She froze mid-paper-fold.
Oh no. No, no, no. Absolutely not. Not vampire detention.
Jasper sat two rows over, diagonally from her — close enough to smell the faint hint of old cologne and something colder underneath. He didn’t say anything, didn’t look at anyone else. Just sat there with perfect stillness, pretending to read a textbook that was definitely upside down.
Aspen looked down at her half-finished homework, whispering under her breath, “Out of all the bloodsuckers, it had to be the one with emotional Wi-Fi.”
She threw another paper airplane — partly for the freshmen, partly to see if he’d flinch. He didn’t. But she felt something — like static electricity brushing her thoughts, a flicker of calm that wasn’t hers. He was trying to soothe her nerves.
“Stop that,” she muttered, eyes narrowing.
The plane hit the wall, ricocheted, and landed right at Jasper’s feet. He looked down, then up at her, one corner of his mouth twitching.
Aspen gritted her teeth. Great. Now the vampire empath thought they were bonding.
Mrs. Talbot’s head drooped. The freshmen launched another round of paper missiles. Aspen picked up her pencil again, heart pounding.
In her mind: Stay normal. Stay boring. Don’t give the undead Texan a reason to sniff your existential crisis.
But Jasper kept watching — curious, cautious, as if she were a frequency he couldn’t quite tune out.
And Aspen, smiling faintly as she folded another paper plane, thought: If he’s here to babysit me, I’m charging him by the hour.
Chapter 2: Y'all Bitches Got Me Fucked Up!
Summary:
Aspen learning a lesson to stop fucking around a bit, but she might not listen to it!
Aspen is like I might die but for justice! (Tries to throw Bella in front a moving car) anyway Eddie boy, I know you can't stand me! *Bella groaning* Fuck! You are still alive, that's cool and all but see I told you he ain't shit! (Future scenes of Bella being like I want to seen by him, you know? Aspen nodding, I got what you need! Putting Bella in danger for Edward save her or make Bella adrenaline junkie)
Just Aspen being like hold on, I got a plan, and Jacob begging her to stop and Aspen about throw Bella off the cliffs for funny times!
Teenage hormones making Aspen stupid and menace again!
Notes:
Aspen being like no love please because I am 26 stuck in teen body again and universe is like love square huh?
Aspen screeching NO LOVE SQUARES DUMB BITCH!!! THEY ARE CHILDREN- EDWARD IS FUCKING WEIRD AHAHAHA
It's me just me being mean to myself with the love triangle and square shit!
Chapter Text
Aspen twirled her pencil between her fingers, a slow smile creeping onto her face as the boredom turned into mischief. The kind of mischief that always came when the air felt too still — and a vampire was trying to read her emotions like radio waves.
Her homework was a half-finished English essay on “The Great Gatsby,” which she was doing purely to spite the system. The topic was “The Illusion of the American Dream,” and Aspen had written:
“If Gatsby lived in 2004, he’d have a MySpace account, Photoshop abs, and crippling student debt. His dream girl would have a boyfriend named Todd who drives a Honda Civic.”
She tapped the eraser against her cheek, smirking to herself. “Yeah,” she whispered, “that’s Pulitzer-worthy.”
But then—her eyes flicked up to Jasper, who sat like a statue in his seat, pretending to read the same paragraph in his book for ten minutes straight. The fluorescent lights glinted off his too-perfect hair. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move.
Something primal in Aspen — maybe boredom, maybe pure chaos — needed to mess with that.
So, she turned her notebook sideways and started sketching.
First came the broad strokes: a tiny, unhinged version of Jasper crouched over a cartoon grave labeled Detention: Here Lies His Dignity. Then she gave him scruffy hair, too many teeth, and an oversized military jacket like he’d crawled straight out of a zombie movie. In his hands, a chewed-up textbook. His eyes wide. Feral. Lost.
She added speech bubbles.
“Who needs calculus when you can bite your trauma?”
“Blink once in a while, bro.”
Finally, in her neatest, most glittery cursive — the kind that looked straight off a Y2K girl’s diary — she wrote under it:
This is you in detention.
P.S. Don’t forget to blink. ❤️
Aspen looked it over, lips pressed tight in a triumphant smile. Then she tore the page out silently, folded it with the precision of someone who’d spent way too many summers bored in class, and creased the wings just right.
The freshman ringleader in the corner gave her an approving nod — like he knew greatness was about to happen.
Aspen aimed. Waited until Mrs. Talbot shifted in her seat. Drew back her wrist—
FWIP.
The paper airplane sliced through the stale air perfectly. It sailed past a row of desks, did a little dip midair, and landed squarely against Jasper’s shoulder, bouncing off and sliding onto his desk.
Aspen immediately bent over her essay, scribbling nonsense about “green lights and unattainable desires” like she hadn’t just attacked a vampire with a drawing.
Silence.
Then, slowly, she looked up — through her lashes — to see Jasper staring down at the little airplane. His expression didn’t change, but the tiniest flicker of amusement ghosted across his features. Barely there.
He unfolded it carefully, read the note, then raised one golden brow — a fraction of an inch. His mouth twitched, almost a smile.
Aspen looked away quickly, pretending to erase a word with intense academic focus.
If I die tonight, it’ll be from embarrassment, she thought, hiding her grin. Or from Jasper launching that thing back at my head at vampire speed.
But he didn’t. He just sat there quietly, the faintest trace of warmth — or confusion — lingering in the space between them.
Aspen dared a glance one more time. His eyes met hers briefly, unreadable. Then, very deliberately—
He blinked.
Aspen snorted into her sleeve.
Detention just got way more entertaining.
Aspen slouched in her detention chair, chin propped in her hand, watching Jasper out of the corner of her eye like a cat sizing up a strange, dangerous dog that just so happened to be weirdly handsome and hauntingly tragic.
Bro doesn’t blink, she thought, squinting. Like, at all. You’d think with all eternity he’d remember basic human etiquette. Blink. Breathe. Pretend to exist, my guy.
Her pencil tapped against her notebook, her tired brain halfway between genuine fascination and sarcastic anthropology. She’d read enough vampire fan theories back in her world to know Jasper Hale’s entire character arc had been reduced to “the Confederate one with trauma.” Which — yikes.
In this reality, though, he was sitting there, not exactly intimidating, not exactly approachable either — just haunted. His hands folded neatly, that stupid perfect posture, that too-still energy that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
Aspen thought of how Stephenie Meyer’s world had treated him:
A bloodthirsty liability.
A love story accessory.
A problem to be solved through devotion.
It made her want to throw something.
She smirked to herself, doodling little bats around her name on the detention slip. If I’m stuck in this weird fanfiction world, I might as well start a social experiment, she decided. Step one: teach Jasper Hale how to be a person.
He was too stiff, too distant — like he’d memorized how to mimic humanity but not feel it. Everyone could sense it, too. Even the freshmen trading Pokémon cards gave him a wide berth, instinctively wary.
But Aspen was too tired, too done with the whole existential crisis of being rewritten, to care about danger. If the world was going to collapse, she might as well make friends with the vampire who looked like he desperately needed a therapy session and a Texan barbecue.
She tapped her pencil again, louder this time. “Hey, Jasper,” she whispered across the room.
His golden eyes flicked up, fast, sharp.
She grinned — small, mischievous, like she was testing him. “You ever gonna blink, cowboy, or do y’all vampires run on eyedrops?”
There was a pause. Then — a breath he didn’t need. And the faintest, smallest pull at the corner of his mouth.
Aspen froze. Oh my God. He can smile.
It wasn’t a full grin, not even a smirk, but something alive passed over his face — confusion, amusement, a crack in the marble.
She could feel it, that tiny ripple of warmth in the stale detention air.
“Texan,” she said under her breath, half to herself. “Of course you are. Gotta start somewhere.”
Jasper tilted his head slightly, like her accent or energy puzzled him, like he couldn’t quite categorize her.
Aspen leaned back, satisfied. “We’re both from Texas,” she muttered, almost proudly. “That makes us practically cousins in this redneck-ass universe.”
And in her head, she was already planning:
Operation: Teach Jasper Hale to Be a Functioning Human Being.
-
Blink. Frequently.
-
Eat fake food convincingly.
-
Learn sarcasm.
-
Develop one (1) hobby that isn’t war, trauma, or Alice.
She snorted under her breath at the last point, scribbling it into her notebook as a mission title.
Across the room, Jasper Hale watched her — curious, uneasy, and for the first time in a century, intrigued.
Because somehow, through all her chaos and noise and irreverent joy, Aspen Milagros Arroyo made the static in his head turn into something almost like laughter.
And deep down, he didn’t understand why the world suddenly seemed to listen when she smiled.
Detention had officially crossed into chaos theory. A handful of students were quietly panicking about unfinished homework, another group was secretly gambling with Pokémon cards, and one pair in the back was trying to launch a paper airplane without hitting the ceiling fan again.
Jasper Hale, however, sat unnervingly still in his chair—perfect posture, eyes on nothing. To everyone else, he looked like a marble statue left behind after a high school play. But inside, his thoughts were a quiet storm.
He knew.
He could feel Aspen’s pulse pick up whenever she glanced at him, hear the subtle shift in her heartbeat when her thoughts spun faster. And that scent—like sun-warmed paper and pencil shavings—mixed with something utterly alive. He didn’t need Edward’s gift to know she’d figured it out. She knows what I am.
A flicker of unease coiled in his chest, but he was curious too. Jasper had spent decades controlling himself around humans, reading their emotions without truly connecting. Yet Aspen… she wasn’t afraid. Her energy radiated a mischief he hadn’t felt in decades—something normal. It felt almost nostalgic.
Then, another paper airplane landed perfectly against his forearm. Jasper looked down.
This one was… different.
He unfolded it carefully, and there he was—drawn as a slice of bologna sandwich with arms and legs, his hair styled with exaggerated Texas flair and a frown that said “existential crisis, but make it deli-style.” The caption, written in curly pink gel pen, read:
“Jasper Hale: emotionally complex meat product.”
Something inside him… cracked. A sound almost like a laugh. He hadn’t laughed—not really laughed—in so long that it startled even him.
Aspen, meanwhile, was hunched over her notebook, trying to disguise her grin. She was now deep in thought, doodling question marks around a half-written phrase:
“Neurodivergent vampires possible or not???”
Her thoughts spiraled the way they always did when something caught her interest. Maybe Jasper was like that before the whole vampire thing… maybe that’s why he’s stiff and quiet and doesn’t blink. He’s just… wired different. And Meyer didn’t even realize she made a neurodivergent character—that explains so much!
Edward, sitting three rows over (detention was apparently a family affair today), froze. His pencil nearly snapped in half as he caught her thought mid-spiral. His mind, normally an elegant maze of calm, was now full of alarmed italics:
Did she just… diagnose Jasper? With ADHD?
Aspen tapped her pencil against her cheek, smiling to herself. I mean, it makes sense. The not blinking. The sensory overload. The constant tension. Poor guy’s like a cowboy lost at Comic-Con.
Edward pressed a hand to his temple, torn between laughter and exasperation.
Jasper, unaware of the full extent of her musings but sensing something, tilted his head slightly. For the first time, his golden eyes actually softened. There was something in Aspen’s energy that wasn’t fear or curiosity—it was understanding.
He hadn’t realized how much he missed that.
Aspen, still doodling, whispered under her breath, “You just need a fidget cube, bro. Or a horse.”
That was when Edward did laugh out loud, earning a sharp “Mr. Cullen!” from the vice principal.
Aspen bit her lip, giggling quietly. Detention had never been this entertaining. And maybe, just maybe, she’d found her next chaotic mission—helping Jasper Hale, the marble soldier, learn how to be human.
Jasper’s pen froze mid-note when Edward’s sudden laugh cracked through the low hum of detention.
Every head turned. The vice principal blinked awake from her half-nap and squinted at the pale boy in the corner.
“Something funny, Mr. Cullen?”
Edward cleared his throat, tone too smooth, “No, Ma'am. Just… remembering a joke.”
Jasper sighed through his nose. He didn’t need Edward to say anything—he could feel it. That ripple of secondhand amusement rolling off his brother like a shockwave. He didn’t even have to look up to know it had something to do with the girl a few rows over—the one who’d been feeding him cartoon caricatures of himself all detention long.
Aspen Milagros Arroyo.
Her emotional signature was wild and electric, like static from a radio that couldn’t quite tune to one station. Every thought she had came wrapped in vivid color—joy and chaos mixed with a streak of curiosity that burned too bright to be ordinary fear. Most humans, when they noticed anything off about the Cullens, reacted with unease. But Aspen?
She was amused. Playful.
Her emotions were spiky with laughter, like a field of fireworks.
Jasper leaned back slightly, scanning her out of the corner of his eye. The notebook in front of her was a battlefield of doodles—tiny versions of him as sandwiches, cowboys, and—was that him wearing bunny ears next to Alice drawn as a blueberry muffin?
He almost smiled again. Almost.
But then Edward’s mind brushed against his. Not words, exactly—just an impression.
→ She knows.
Jasper’s jaw tightened. His instinct was defensive. If she knew… how? Why wasn’t she afraid? And why was she thinking about me like that?
He could feel the shape of her thoughts in the air around her. Giddy, spiraling, affectionate in a way that felt… oddly humanizing.
Then a pulse of realization hit him through Edward’s barely contained laughter. Jasper stiffened.
→ She thinks you’re neurodivergent, Jasper.
For a full three seconds, his brain emptied of coherent thought. His lips parted slightly.
“…She what?”
Edward’s shoulders shook as he turned a page in his notebook, pretending to write.
→ She’s diagnosing you, brother. With something called ‘ADHD’ I think?
Jasper blinked. Once. Then again, slowly, like a statue trying to prove a point.
He could almost taste the humor bleeding off Edward’s aura. But beneath it, something else—amusement tinged with awe.
Aspen, meanwhile, was deeply engaged in her own silent, chaotic brainstorm:
If Jasper’s like a Radiohead song—all tense guitars and repression—then Edward’s totally a Weezer song, like “Buddy Holly” but if Buddy Holly had a superiority complex. And maybe Alice is The Killers. “Mr. Brightside” but make it sparkly.
Jasper frowned faintly, unsure why his chest felt lighter. The chaos of detention buzzed on—gum popping, paper crinkling, and the distant thud of sneakers against desk legs.
Mrs. Talbot finally stirred from her chair and muttered, “Alright, pack it up, delinquents. You’re free to go. Try not to wind up back here tomorrow.”
Chairs scraped. Bags zipped. The room filled with murmurs of relief.
Edward and Jasper didn’t move immediately. They were supposed to be here—to observe. Carlisle’s idea, technically. Something about a new girl who’d transferred from out of district with a record of “odd behavior and possible shapeshifting activity.” The Quileutes had mentioned another unfamiliar scent near Forks, and it wasn’t theirs. So, naturally, Jasper volunteered.
What he hadn’t expected was to find a hurricane in human form.
As the crowd funneled toward the door, Aspen slung her bag over her shoulder, muttering to herself and scribbling in her notebook. “Okay… Jasper equals Radiohead. Edward equals Weezer. Alice equals The Killers. Emmett’s probably Foo Fighters. Rosalie’s definitely Paramore.”
She paused mid-thought. Wait, why was Edward in detention too?
Her eyes widened slightly as the realization clicked.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “There were two of them in here the whole time.”
She quickly turned her focus back to her writing, because looking either vampire in the eye right now might actually kill her from embarrassment—or fascination. Maybe both.
As she left the classroom, her brain buzzed with overlapping thoughts:
Jasper probably doesn’t get pop culture jokes. I should make flashcards for him. Step one: explain memes. Step two: teach him about neurodivergent vampires. Step three: maybe stop him from attacking Bella later, because that’d be awkward.
Edward caught fragments of it and pinched the bridge of his nose, suppressing a grin.
Jasper followed her with his eyes as she disappeared down the hall, her emotions still humming like an aftershock. He didn’t know what she was, not exactly—but he was certain of one thing:
For the first time in decades, he didn’t feel like a monster in a human school. He felt… seen.
And that scared him more than any bloodlust ever had.
Aspen trudged along the cracked sidewalk, the soles of her Converse scuffing against the wet pavement. The Forks drizzle had graduated from mist to whisper—one of those thin, secret rains that didn’t soak you, just clung like fog. Streetlights blinked on one by one, little amber halos in the grey-blue evening.
Her mind, as usual, was louder than her footsteps.
“Okay,” she muttered to herself, backpack bumping against her side. “So, theory number one: this world keeps rewriting itself, but it’s lazy about it. Like, half-Meyer canon, half my brain throwing tantrums.”
She tapped her temple with a pencil. “Theory number two: Jasper’s a neurodivergent vampire, Edward’s a melodramatic Weezer album, and Carlisle’s just… religious trauma personified in a lab coat.”
A wet leaf smacked her shoulder; she jumped slightly, then huffed.
“Okay, no need to panic, just a leaf. Not a vampire. Not a wolf. Not—”
A branch cracked somewhere behind her.
She froze.
The woods pressed close to the road here, thick with moss and shadow. The kind of place where mist curled low, swallowing shapes until they looked almost human. Aspen’s stomach fluttered uneasily. She turned, but nothing moved—just rain hitting asphalt, water whispering off ferns.
Her rational brain—well, what was left of it—tried to reason: Sam. It’s probably Sam.
He’d be in wolf form now if this was roughly mid-2004 canon. Protective. Curious. Maybe slightly suspicious of her new existence in this timeline.
“Hi, Sam,” she whispered awkwardly toward the trees, “if you’re, like, wolf-spying right now, cool, I guess. No harm meant. Just… please don’t eat me.”
Silence answered.
Still, something prickled at the back of her neck—a sensation not of danger, but attention. The kind that made her skin buzz. Vampires or wolves, she couldn’t tell. She wasn’t used to being prey, not really.
So she did what any self-respecting chaos gremlin trapped in a Twilight AU would do—she kept walking, faster now, pretending the noise behind her didn’t matter. Her brain, of course, filled the silence with more rants.
“Rosalie and Leah got done dirty,” she grumbled. “Rosalie because Meyer probably had an internalized hatred for pretty women who didn’t worship main characters. Leah because—ugh—heaven forbid a woman be angry about trauma. Like, why make a universe of monsters and still make the women’s pain unholy?!”
Her voice rose, echoing faintly off the damp trees.
“And Jessica Stanley? Please. She’s the early 2000s’ it-girl archetype—popular, insecure, gossipy, but normal. Which means Meyer must’ve hated girls like her in high school and just… coded that into the story. A petty revenge fantasy dressed as moral purity. Classic author self-insert syndrome.”
She stopped, realizing how loud she’d gotten. “God, I’m talking to myself again,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Maybe I am losing it.”
She adjusted her bag, shaking rain from her hair, and whispered, “It’s fine. I’m not important enough to kill off. Yet. I’m like, mid-tier side character material right now. The plot armor’s at least denim strength.”
Still, as she neared the edge of the streetlight’s reach, she swore she saw a flicker of movement—something pale, quick, watching from where the trees met the road.
Her gut said vampire. Her humor said: “Of course.”
“Fine,” she said under her breath, forcing a grin. “If you’re following me, Edward, I hope you’re ready for the sequel to my neurodivergent vampire thesis. I’m drafting a whole essay next.”
Then she turned her music up—Interpol’s Roland—and marched home through the rain.
Later, in the Cullen house
The room was dim, all sharp light and shadows thrown by the fire that barely burned for aesthetic purposes. Jasper leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes distant. Edward sat across from him, the ghost of laughter still flickering at the edges of his expression.
“She knows,” Jasper said flatly. “She knows what we are.”
Edward shrugged lightly, flipping through a book he wasn’t reading.
“She suspects. There’s a difference.”
“You read her mind. What exactly did she—”
Edward’s smirk returned. “Jasper, she thinks you’re a neurodivergent vampire.”
Jasper’s expression went through five stages of disbelief in three seconds. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
“I haven’t been this entertained in decades,” Edward admitted. “She’s… different. Her mind isn’t like the others’. It’s noisy—messy—but bright. It doesn’t follow linear thought patterns. I can barely track half of it.”
“Is she a threat?”
Edward hesitated. “No. But she’s… volatile. Emotionally alive in a way that’s—”
“Dangerous?” Jasper supplied.
Edward shook his head. “Contagious.”
Jasper frowned, brow furrowing. “She sees me, Edward. Not the soldier, not the monster. She made me into a cartoon and still laughed. Who does that?”
Edward closed the book and met his gaze. “Someone who refuses to be afraid.”
The fire crackled softly between them.
“She’s not like the others,” Jasper murmured, half to himself. “Not soft or trembling. She’s—”
“Chaotic good,” Edward finished dryly. “A wild card.”
They shared a moment of silence, the weight of unspoken questions thick between them.
Finally, Jasper sighed. “If she keeps thinking the way she does, she’ll draw attention—from the pack, from others. Maybe from me.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. “Then we’ll have to decide whether to protect her… or keep her from unraveling things.”
“Which do you think Carlisle will choose?”
Edward didn’t answer.
The forest behind the Cullen property was silvered by drizzle, moss glowing faintly under the moonlight. Edward and Jasper stood among the trees, their conversation low and taut, the air around them tinged with static tension.
“She knows something,” Jasper said again, voice a whisper that carried like smoke. “Not just a guess—she feels it. Like instinct.”
Edward tilted his head, his eyes unreadable. “I told you, her thoughts are… fragmented. A kaleidoscope of images, music, theories. I can only catch the edges. One moment she’s analyzing Rosalie’s representation in Meyer’s ‘narrative,’ the next she’s comparing you to a bologna sandwich.”
Jasper’s expression tightened. “A what?”
Edward’s mouth twitched. “Bologna sandwich. Her words, not mine.”
Jasper exhaled sharply through his nose. “Charming.”
Before Edward could reply, a voice like a bell cut through the mist.
“You two shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Alice appeared between the trees, silent as starlight, her golden eyes soft but worried. The hem of her cardigan brushed the ferns as she stepped closer.
“I can’t see her,” she said without preamble. “I’ve been trying since you mentioned her name, Edward. Aspen Milagros Arroyo doesn’t exist in my visions. Not in the near future, not anywhere. It’s like she’s… a hole in the timeline.”
Jasper’s eyes flickered, concern settling in his features. “You mean she’s shielded?”
Alice shook her head. “Not exactly. It’s worse. Usually, when I can’t see someone, I see around them—how their absence affects things. But with her, it’s like my sight stops. I look for her, and the entire thread ends.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. “So she’s not a variable. She’s an interruption.”
Alice crossed her arms, glancing at both of them. “You two should stop whispering about her like she’s prey. If I can’t see her, we have no idea what kind of danger she brings. You’ve both been in the South—remember what happens when the unknown shows up on your doorstep.”
Before Edward could reply, a low crunch of branches made them all turn.
“Hey!”
Emmett stepped out from the dark, brushing pine needles off his hoodie, expression halfway between confusion and amusement. “Why are we having a family meeting in the woods? You three planning a coup against Carlisle or something?”
Alice sighed. “It’s not a coup, Emmett.”
“Then why do you all look like you’re auditioning for a vampire true crime documentary?”
Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. “Emmett—”
“No, seriously,” Emmett said, crossing his arms. “I come back from a hunt, you’re whispering like guilty teenagers. Who’s this Aspen girl anyway? The new human?”
“She’s… unusual,” Jasper admitted.
Emmett smirked. “Unusual how? Like, ‘Rosalie saw her shoes and said ew,’ or ‘Edward’s doing the brooding stare again’ unusual?”
Edward shot him a dry look. “She’s unpredictable. I can’t read her thoughts properly.”
“Dude, that’s half the human population,” Emmett said, grinning. “Maybe she’s just too weird for your psychic range.”
Jasper didn’t smile. “Alice can’t see her.”
That got Emmett’s attention. He blinked, his grin fading. “Can’t see her at all?”
Alice nodded slowly.
“Well, that’s creepy,” Emmett said, rubbing the back of his neck. “She human?”
Edward hesitated. “…For now.”
Emmett let out a low whistle. “Man, you two are wound up. But honestly? I kinda like her already. Any girl who makes you both this stressed out has my vote.”
Alice gave him a pointed look. “This isn’t a joke, Emmett.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Relax, I’m not saying she’s harmless. Just… maybe she’s meant to shake things up a little. Every story needs a wildcard.”
Edward’s gaze flickered toward the town, where somewhere far off, a human girl scribbled into a notebook. “She’s already rewriting things,” he murmured.
Aspen — Later That Night
The rain had softened to a steady patter against her window. Her lamp flickered, weak light casting golden pools across the candy-red and chocolate-brown walls.
Aspen sat cross-legged on her bed, notebook open, pen tapping rhythmically. The pages were half doodles, half conspiracy theories: “Jasper = neurodivergent vampire?” “Edward = Weezer-core overthinker.” “Carlisle = vampire blood donor scammer opportunity???”
She was halfway through sketching little cartoon vampire brains when her handwriting glitched.
The ink didn’t just smear—it rewrote itself, letters bending and curling into new words.
“Aspen Milagros Arroyo – future love interest.”
“Connected to Edward Cullen.”
“Triangle forming – possible Jacob interference.”
Aspen froze.
“No,” she whispered, flipping the notebook shut so fast it smacked her palm. “Absolutely not. You will not fanfiction me into a love square, Stephanie Meyer.”
She pressed her hand to her forehead, groaning. “God, even in alternate realities, women can’t just exist without being someone’s emotional arc.”
Her eyes drifted toward the window, rain streaking like melted glass.
“Three months before Bella shows up,” she muttered. “So I’ve got, what, ninety days before the plot kidnaps me?”
She fell back onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“Kill Bella Swan?” she said aloud, then snorted. “No. No, that’s dumb. I’m not a murderer. But maybe…”
A grin tugged at her lips.
“Maybe I can fix her first. Give her a backbone before Edward sinks his melodramatic teeth in. Teach her to say no and touch grass.”
She turned her head, looking at her notebook again, now eerily still. “Yeah,” she said softly, determination glinting in her tired eyes. “If I’m stuck in this rewrite, then fine. I’ll be the glitch that makes this story better.”
Her pen twirled in her fingers, and with a smirk, she began writing again.
“Step one: Survive Forks High.”
“Step two: Befriend Jasper Hale.”
“Step three: Save Bella Swan from her own canon.”
The rain outside picked up, like applause.
Static Between Pages
Jasper had never liked the library.
The scent of old paper and human dust clung to the air like something fossilized. It reminded him too much of slow decay — the kind that wasn’t physical, but intellectual. Yet, this morning, the library held something else. Something electric.
Aspen sat at one of the far tables near the windows, slouched over a notebook, her earbuds in. The faint static of her iPod leaked into the air, barely audible:
“You’re pretty good looking, for a girl…”
Her lips moved with the beat, almost mouthing the words, her pencil tapping a rhythm. She looked human in a way few of them ever did — messy ponytail, hoodie sleeves rolled over her hands, leg jittering with restless energy.
Jasper lingered in the aisle behind the historical fiction shelf, pretending to scan the spines. He wasn’t used to watching humans like this, not since the old days when “watching” meant “feeding.” But this was different.
He was testing something.
If his instincts were right — and Alice’s inability to see Aspen’s future wasn’t a glitch — then this girl wasn’t just another background character in their endless masquerade.
He closed his eyes and reached out with that quiet current he could never turn off, the one that let him feel others like weather patterns.
What came back from Aspen was... complicated.
Fatigue. The heavy, dull kind that came from living too long in a loop.
And something softer — joy, brief and nervous, like a candle flare.
Jasper frowned. “Joy” wasn’t an emotion Forks High produced often.
Especially not at eight a.m.
He opened his eyes and saw her scribbling intensely into her notebook.
A math worksheet sat untouched beside it — she wasn’t doing homework. She was writing something else. Words filled the page in fast, looping script, her lips muttering as she went.
—reality’s rewriting itself again, Meyer’s fingerprints are everywhere. the truck’s here too early. the bookstore display changed overnight. if I see one more “pale mysterious boy” poster I’m going to—
Jasper’s brow furrowed. He could make out fragments from where he stood, but what caught him wasn’t the paranoia — it was the smell.
Under the usual mix of ink and human warmth was a faint trace of something earthy, raw… wet soil and cedarwood. Wolf.
His jaw tightened.
No, not wolf — not exactly.
It was diluted, faded, like someone who had brushed against one recently.
Sam Uley? Impossible. None of the pack came near this campus. But what if she—?
He cut off the thought. He was letting suspicion do what it always did — spiral.
Aspen’s emotions shifted again. Her joy dimmed into faint irritation, like static popping in and out. Her pen tapped the table, she glanced toward the shelves behind her — straight toward him.
For a heartbeat, Jasper thought she’d seen him. But she only stretched, yawned, and muttered something under her breath:
“Ugh, I’m not even important enough for a jump scare today, am I?”
Jasper blinked. What the hell did that mean?
He ducked his head and turned a page in the nearest book, pretending to read, though the words blurred.
Alice’s warning echoed in his mind:
“She’s a blind spot. I don’t know what she is, Jasper. And if I can’t see her, neither can fate.”
He felt his throat tighten.
He’d seen soldiers lose their minds over smaller mysteries.
Was Aspen human? Part wolf? Something else entirely?
And why did her emotions feel so old — as if they carried centuries of weary observation behind every tired smile?
He risked another glance.
She was humming now, pencil between her teeth, eyes distant but alive.
That strange song still playing, the same line looping:
“You’re pretty good looking, for a girl…”
Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe she was just another bored teenage girl, writing too hard and feeling too much.
But Jasper Hale had learned long ago — coincidences were just fate in disguise.
Jasper didn’t hear Alice come in so much as feel her—a bright shimmer at the edge of his awareness, her mind like a glass bead catching light.
“Spying again?” she whispered, voice laced with disapproval and worry.
He didn’t look away from Aspen. “Observing,” he corrected softly.
Alice crouched beside him between the shelves, folding her arms. “You call it observing. I call it obsessing. You’ve been watching that girl for two days straight, Jazz.”
“She’s… anomalous,” Jasper murmured. “And I don’t like anomalies. Especially ones that smell half-Quileute.”
Alice frowned, glancing toward Aspen. “Half—? Oh no. No, no, no. You don’t think she’s—”
“I don’t know what she is,” he said quickly, cutting her off. “But you can’t see her future, and that’s never happened before unless—”
“—unless she’s tied to the wolves,” Alice finished grimly.
Before either could continue, a sharp whisper boomed behind them.
“What the hell are you two doing?”
Emmett’s voice was impossible to miss. He loomed over them with that half-annoyed, half-amused look he wore whenever he caught them doing something “Cullen weird.”
Alice sighed. “Lower your voice, Emmett.”
He crouched down beside them anyway, peering through the gap in the shelves toward Aspen. “Seriously? We’re having a secret family meeting in the middle of the library now?” He smirked. “You look like creeps. If anyone sees this, they’re calling the cops.”
Jasper didn’t respond, gaze still fixed on the girl across the room.
Aspen had switched songs. Something poppier, brighter.
A whisper of Britney Spears’ “Overprotected” drifted faintly through her earbuds, her voice just barely audible as she sang along under her breath.
She was doodling in the margins of her notebook — little spirals, hearts, a stick-figure wolf with a speech bubble that said “NOT AGAIN.”
Her pencil scribbled in fast rhythm to the music, her face serious but oddly peaceful.
Emmett followed Jasper’s line of sight, then chuckled under his breath.
“That’s what you’re worried about? She’s harmless, man. Just a weirdo with too much caffeine and a playlist from 2002.”
“She’s not harmless,” Jasper muttered. “Her emotions are… fractured. She feels too much. Like she’s living two lives at once.”
“Sounds like half the students here,” Emmett shot back, smirking.
“Teenagers are weird. You two just forgot what it’s like.”
Alice didn’t smile. “She can’t be read by me, Emmett. That’s not normal. And she has Quileute scent on her.”
Emmett shrugged. “Maybe she has a dog.”
“Not that kind of dog,” Jasper said darkly.
Across the library, Aspen changed pens, switching from black ink to bright pink. Her handwriting twitched as if something had glitched mid-stroke — her letters bending slightly different for a heartbeat, like reality hesitated before continuing.
She was writing something on the corner of a worksheet, oblivious to her observers.
“The red truck’s already here. The bookshop display changed to vampire novels overnight. It’s like the world is holding its breath for her. Bella Swan, the chosen one. I hate it here.”
Aspen sighed, slouching in her chair. She took out a highlighter and drew a little smiley face over the words as if mocking herself.
Her thoughts drifted somewhere quieter, her lips moving soundlessly as she scribbled another line:
“In 2004, I should’ve been a four-year-old dancing to cartoons, waiting for mom’s dinner. Not… this. Not a reboot of someone else’s bad teenage dream.”
She exhaled shakily, then sat up straighter, forcing a grin toward no one. “Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Be brave or break down. Pick one.”
Her eyes flicked toward the window, catching the gray rain against the glass.
Jasper watched her, every nerve in his body pulled taut.
Emmett nudged him. “See? She’s fine. Just dramatic. You and Alice gotta stop playing detective before someone notices you’re both not breathing.”
Alice ignored him. “Jazz,” she whispered, “she doesn’t belong here. But I don’t think she knows it either.”
Jasper finally tore his eyes away. “That’s what scares me,” he murmured.
Emmett huffed. “What scares me is that you two look one jump away from writing a thesis on this poor kid. Come on, let’s go. Before she starts singing Toxic and figures out we’re stalking her.”
He stood, brushing imaginary dust off his jacket.
Alice rose after him reluctantly, her gaze flicking back to Aspen once more. “You know she’s not like Maria, right?” she said softly to Jasper.
“She’s not meant to be part of everyone’s life story.”
Jasper didn’t answer.
Because in his gut, he already suspected the truth:
Aspen wasn’t meant to exist in this world at all —
and yet somehow, she’d written herself in.
Perfect — this is a great point to deepen the tension and humor. We’ll start with Aspen’s chaotic day (her gleeful but suspiciously targeted nonsense toward Edward), then move into the Cullen household scene, full of sibling sniping, eerie realizations, and family dynamics. The vampires are still unaware they’re fictional characters—so the uncanny edge of Aspen’s behavior feels like a supernatural disruption to them, not meta-awareness.
Rain and Rumors of Static
By the end of the school day, Aspen felt the weight of too many eyes.
Specifically, golden ones.
In the hall, during lunch, even as she pretended to take a bathroom break—there was always one Cullen looking. She caught Jasper’s gaze by the vending machines, Alice’s at the end of the English hall, and Edward’s nearly everywhere.
Aspen frowned to herself.
What gives? Did I fart? Did I insult their vampire honor by accident?
Then it hit her like a lightning flash through the drizzle outside—oh.
Right.
She had, maybe, slightly antagonized Edward that morning in their
shared literature class.
Flashback — Second Period English
The classroom was too warm; the kind of sleepy heat that made every fluorescent buzz seem louder. Edward sat stiff and composed two rows ahead of her, radiating his usual “I’m a tragic marble statue” energy.
Aspen, bored out of her mind, had slowly leaned forward until her desk creaked. Then she jabbed the eraser end of her pencil toward his ear, juuust shy of contact, mouthing:
“Boop.”
He’d frozen—every muscle tense—and turned with that inhuman stillness that made her instantly snicker.
Later, while the teacher diagrammed Shakespearean sonnets, Aspen balanced another pencil between her upper lip and nose, crossing her eyes to see if Edward would react.
He did not.
At least not visibly.
But she felt it—the faint ripple of annoyance rolling off him.
When he corrected her reading of a line (“That’s not what the text implies,” he’d said, voice smooth and smug), Aspen’s retaliation came out sharp as lightning:
“Oh, I’m sorry, Shakespeare whisperer, I didn’t realize you knew him personally.”
The class had laughed. The teacher had frowned.
Edward had glared, just briefly, like he wanted to throw a thesaurus at her head.
Now, walking home through the gentle drizzle, Aspen kicked at puddles and hummed to herself. Her phone buzzed:
Jacob Gearhead: “U survive detention pt. 2?”
Aspen: “barely. vampires everywhere. they’re allergic 2 jokes.”
Embry Who Wolf: “u still smell like wet dog?”
Aspen: “yeah. trademark perfume now :3”
Quil Moon Moon: “get home safe tho. rain’s weird today.”
Aspen smiled faintly, tugging her hood up. She could already smell the moss, the wet cedar, the faint electric taste of storm air.
She had no idea that across town, in a mansion of glass and shadows, the Cullens were having a family meltdown.
The Cullen House
The rain came down harder now, blurring the windows. Edward was pacing—fast enough that the sound was a ghostly blur. His jaw was tight, his expression somewhere between fury and disbelief.
“She knows,” he snapped, voice echoing through the living room.
“Knows what?” Rosalie drawled from the couch, filing her nails like a queen bored of the apocalypse.
“That I’m not—” Edward stopped himself, gesturing helplessly. “That I’m not human. She was testing me in class today.”
Emmett snorted. “Testing you? Bro, what’d she do, wave a cross at you?”
Edward glared. “No. She—she tried to stick a pencil in my ear.”
That silenced the room for a good five seconds.
“…Come again?” Emmett grinned slowly. “She what now?”
“I heard him,” Rosalie said, smirking. “She’s testing your limits with school supplies. How terrifying.”
“This isn’t funny!” Edward hissed. “She’s reckless. She’s perceptive. And she wants a reaction.”
Esme entered quietly, drying her hands on a towel from the kitchen.
“Edward, darling, perhaps she’s just… spirited? You do tend to overreact when people challenge you.”
“She mocked me in front of the entire class.”
“That part I believe,” Jasper muttered from the corner. He was sitting near the fireplace, posture straight, expression guarded. His eyes met Edward’s briefly. “She’s not afraid of us. That’s what’s unsettling.”
Alice drifted to Jasper’s side, her tone worried. “She’s still invisible to me. Not a flicker of her future. It’s like she’s… off-grid.”
Rosalie lowered her nail file. “If she’s Quileute, that explains it.”
Emmett snorted again. “Or maybe she just hates Edward. A lot of people do.”
Edward growled softly, and Emmett grinned wider.
Esme raised an eyebrow. “That’s enough.”
But Rosalie leaned forward, eyes sharp. “If she’s really testing you, Edward, then she’s dangerous. Not because she’s human, but because she’s paying attention. People like that get hurt—or get others hurt.”
Edward hesitated, then said quietly, “She looked at me like she already knew the ending to something I haven’t even started.”
Alice frowned, touching his arm. “That’s not possible. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Jasper asked, his voice low.
Alice shook her head. “Never mind. I just—don’t like how the world feels lately. Like something’s rewriting itself around her.”
There was a beat of silence. Only the rain filled the room.
Emmett finally broke it with a grin. “So let me get this straight: some weird new girl shoves a pencil in your ear, makes you look stupid in English class, and now the whole family’s in a panic?”
Rosalie smirked. “Sounds about right.”
Edward glared, but Jasper’s voice cut through before the argument could grow.
“She’s not a threat,” he said, standing. “Not yet. But she’s not normal either. And for now…” His eyes flickered toward the rain outside, the faint hum of her name on his thoughts. “I’ll keep watching her.”
The Meadow That Shouldn’t Exist
Aspen was lost.
Not “missed the bus” lost — but plot-point lost.
Like she’d stepped into a cutscene from a chapter that shouldn’t even exist yet.
“This never happened before,” she whispered, her breath visible in the damp air. “I’m supposed to be home right now—Jacob probably waiting for me to text—”
But her phone had no signal, and the rain had stopped too suddenly. The forest light felt off, almost staged, painted by someone’s trembling hand.
Aspen turned slowly in the silence.
She knew this place. Even before she saw it, her brain whispered: the meadow.
The one that would someday be the sacred, sparkling lover’s sanctuary of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan — the place every teenage girl in 2008 would bookmark in their heart and reread until the page edges curled.
Aspen blinked at it now — at the halo of sunlight breaking through the gray clouds, the moss and wildflowers glistening — and sighed.
“Lame,” she muttered.
Even the air felt filtered, like Meyer’s prose had airbrushed the dirt off the forest floor. Aspen crossed her arms, unimpressed.
Who decided this was holy ground? It’s a patch of grass with trust issues.
She felt… wrong here. Like the world was tightening around her, each second threatening to collapse.
“Okay,” she muttered to the air. “Steph, if this is you—lesson received, alright? I’ll behave. I’ll… I don’t know, make out with Edward for character development, if that’s what you want—”
Then she stopped.
Because someone else was in the meadow.
A figure, tall and still, in a dark jacket that didn’t quite belong to Forks High fashion.
Skin too perfect. Eyes pure black—but fading toward red.
Her heart dropped. “Laurent,” she breathed.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not yet.
He wasn’t supposed to show up until after Bella moved here—months from now.
“Damn it,” she hissed, backing up. “You’re early! You’re early, this isn’t your cue!”
Laurent tilted his head, confused—and then smiled. It was the kind of smile that pretended to be kind, but his hunger wasn’t pretending.
“You smell different,” he said, voice smooth and wrong. “Not quite human… not quite wolf either.”
Aspen forced a laugh. “I’m a limited edition, sweetie. You can’t collect me.”
He moved too fast for her to finish her joke.
The world turned into light, teeth, and pain.
Something sharp tore through her side; her scream broke the forest air.
She fell—leaves sticking to her blood, her hand scrambling for anything.
She saw the sky flicker, like pixels glitching.
“Stephanie Meyer, you bitch,” she gasped, half-laughing, half-crying. “Killing me off for talking back—classic author behavior—”
Laurent leaned closer, his fangs glinting. She tried to hit him with a rock.
“I—hate—your—book—order!” she spat, slamming the rock uselessly against his jaw.
The world bled to black and gray.
She heard something—someone—approaching.
Then she lost consciousness.
Jasper – The Watcher in the Pines
Jasper had followed her trail after school, his curiosity sharper than his restraint.
Her scent clung to the rain like a strange melody—warm, human, but threaded with something other.
He didn’t like it. Not because it was dangerous—but because it made him feel.
Confused, oddly protective, restless.
Every pulse of emotion she gave off shifted his own balance: joy, irony, sadness, the brief flicker of nostalgia for something he’d never lived.
He’d watched her from a distance for days—through the trees near the school, at the library, that ridiculous detention stunt—but now her scent pulled him deeper.
Until he smelled blood.
Real blood.
And something else: fear, disbelief, pain that wasn’t entirely physical.
Jasper ran.
Branches shattered underfoot. His lungs didn’t burn, but something in his chest did.
He followed the copper trail until he reached the meadow—and stopped dead.
Aspen lay crumpled among the ferns, red seeping into the moss. Her hoodie was torn. Her eyes barely open.
“Stephanie Meyer,” she muttered weakly, “fuck you. And—of course—the only Black vampire is the one who bites me. Figures.”
Jasper froze, horror cutting through his hunger.
Her emotions hit him like a storm: anger, defiance, humor.
He’d never felt humor in dying humans before.
He stepped closer, crouching—his instincts roaring feed, but something deeper whispering help.
Then movement—a whisper behind him.
“Alice,” he said, not turning.
Her voice trembled. “We saw you run. I told Esme something was wrong.”
Esme was beside her, horror softening into sorrow. “Oh, goodness… what happened?”
“I don’t know,” Jasper said, voice rough. “I thought—”
He looked down again. The wound was bad, but not fatal. Laurent must’ve fled mid-attack.
“Help me get her out of here,” Esme said, already kneeling beside Aspen.
Alice glanced around. “There’s another scent. Not ours.”
Jasper felt his hands shake. His throat burned. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted venom.
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Aspen’s bloodied hand twitched, grabbing the hem of his sleeve.
Her eyelids fluttered. “Jasper,” she slurred. “Blink, bro.”
And then she passed out again.
Perfect setup — let’s keep that chaotic, meta-nightmare fever tone rolling while grounding it in that eerie Twilight tension. Here’s the continuation:
Aspen’s consciousness stuttered like a scratched CD — flickering between forest shadows and white-screen flashes of movie dialogue.
“This is the skin of a killer, Bella.”
The line echoed from nowhere, like a bad speaker underwater. Aspen clawed at the mud, coughing blood and rain. “You’re not even here, Edward! Shut up!” she spat at the nothing, half-laughing, half-sobbing.
She felt her — the Author — hovering above, unseen but coldly watching.
You weren’t supposed to go there yet.
Aspen’s vision blurred into a smear of static trees. “Yeah, well, maybe write better directions next time!” she gasped, dragging herself forward another inch before her arm gave out. “You… you didn’t even give me a car, Stephanie…”
Alice’s voice cut through the static, desperate and tremoring: “She’s talking to someone—Jasper, she’s fighting us!”
“I know.” Jasper’s drawl was cracked, strained. He was half-kneeling beside her, the scent of her blood crashing through his mind like wildfire. The emotion rolling off her—terror, defiance, absurd humor—made no sense. It didn’t match dying. It felt like rebellion. “She’s scared of somethin’ that ain’t here,” he muttered. “And… hell, she knows too much.”
Esme crouched beside them, her calm trembling under the stormlight. “We can’t lose her here. She’s human—bleeding out—but she shouldn’t still be conscious.”
Then the forest snapped alive—massive, snarling, breath hot and wild. Sam Uley burst through the trees, wolf form towering, purest black of night eyes burning with fury.
Jasper instinctively shifted forward, shielding Alice and the trembling girl, a low hiss escaping him.
“Sam,” Esme said softly, voice shaking but motherly firm. “She’s hurt. We didn’t do this.”
Sam’s growl rolled like thunder. He inched closer, sniffing the air thick with copper and fear. Aspen, half-delirious, blinked up at him through tears and grit. “You… big furry… Twilight extra, back off!” She tried to bite at his paw when he leaned close, weakly gnashing her teeth before collapsing again.
Alice flinched but almost laughed from the shock of it. “She’s delirious.”
Esme’s voice broke through again: “Edward called an ambulance. We’re saying it was a bear attack.”
Jasper barely heard her—his hand hovering above Aspen’s trembling shoulder, the venom in his throat burning, her emotions drowning him. Pain. Defiance.
Recognition.
She shouldn’t know his name. She shouldn’t know this world.
And yet, when her eyes fluttered open for half a heartbeat, she whispered, hoarse and shaking:
“Jasper… she’s rewriting it, isn’t she?”
The forest went still.
Even the rain seemed to pause.
The hospital smelled like antiseptic and human fragility — it made Jasper’s throat ache, but he stayed anyway. Four days since they found her, and the girl hadn’t woken properly once.
Carlisle insisted on taking her case personally, with a serene professionalism that kept everyone’s suspicions low. “Bear attack,” he’d repeated so often the nurses had started parroting it too. But Jasper could feel it — the unease under their polite chatter. Aspen didn’t fit any of their patterns. She should’ve died that night.
And yet she lingered.
She muttered in her sleep. She laughed sometimes, too.
Today the air was calmer — softer, humming with quiet hospital routine. Jasper stood in the hall outside her room, still as marble, hands clasped behind his back. The sounds inside reached him perfectly.
Jacob Black’s voice filled the sterile room, warm and restless like sunlight through rain.
“…so Quil dared Embry to race near the pier, but then Mrs. Clearwater was there, and—yeah, you can guess how that went.”
Aspen’s laugh was broken but bright. “Jaaaay-cub,” she slurred, dragging out his name like a melody. “You’re so awesome… you know that?”
Jasper could hear the smile in her voice. Then a pause — the monitor beeping lazily beside her.
“Tell me ‘bout the wolves again,” she whispered, like a child asking for a bedtime story.
Jacob groaned, but it was playful. “You’re not even gonna remember, Aspen. You’re on enough meds to knock out a bear.”
Her response was immediate. “Nooo, bears are plot devices!”
Jacob blinked. “What?”
She giggled, dreamy and slow. “You’ll get it later.”
Jasper leaned his head against the wall, eyes closing for half a second. He could feel her emotions, thick and drifting like warm fog — joy, confusion, an undercurrent of rebellion that shouldn’t exist in someone that broken.
Then Leah entered — quiet, composed, her energy sharp but protective. She smelled faintly of rain and earth. Jasper recognized her before Jacob said her name.
“Leah brought soup,” Jacob announced.
Aspen hummed faintly. “That’s so… human of her.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “You’re weird, Aspen.”
“Born this way,” she sang softly, slipping back into half-sleep.
Outside, Jasper’s jaw flexed. None of this should be possible. The wolves’ visits, her recovery rate, the way her emotions didn’t match her body’s trauma — all of it was wrong.
When Carlisle finally emerged from her room, Jasper spoke quietly. “She’s gettin’ visitors from La Push.”
“I know,” Carlisle said, adjusting his white coat. “They care about her. It’s good for her healing.”
Jasper didn’t answer right away. “And her mind? Edward said the drugs are… makin’ her skip?”
Carlisle hesitated — the faintest pause, but Jasper caught it. “He said her thoughts are fragmented. Half lucid, half nonsense.”
“Except nonsense ain’t supposed to hurt,” Jasper muttered. “She feels like she’s fightin’ somethin’—even asleep.”
Carlisle placed a hand on his shoulder, gentle but firm. “Whatever she’s fighting, it isn’t our battle to control.”
But Jasper wasn’t sure anymore. Because beneath all the confusion, all the emotion, there was something he couldn’t ignore — a quiet pulse, a missing note in the song of reality itself.
And it beat in sync with Aspen’s heart.
Everything smelled like lemon disinfectant and old paper. Aspen floated somewhere between being alive and being an unfinished draft.
She could hear voices — familiar and not.
Jacob’s voice cracked at the edges, still boyish. “You’re gonna be fine, Aspen, okay? You’ll be home before the weekend.”
Leah’s tone was sharper, almost like she didn’t believe him. “Don’t promise things you can’t keep, Jake.”
Then Sam — solid, grave. He didn’t speak until the others turned to leave. His low growl cut through the hospital beeps.
“Stay away from her,” he warned the air.
When Aspen blinked, the “air” took shape — Jasper and Carlisle, standing just beyond the doorway like badly written angels. Sam’s eyes locked on them.
“I mean it. I don’t care how civilized you pretend to be.”
The wolves left. The door clicked shut.
Aspen snorted softly, eyes half-lidded. “Dramatic much?” she whispered to no one. “You’d think this was a CW crossover.”
Then she realized she wasn’t whispering to herself. The room shimmered faintly.
“Why?” she asked the ceiling, voice hoarse. “Why are you doing this to me? I wasn’t even a main character!”
No answer — just the hum of fluorescent light.
“Is this because I called the meadow scene lame?” Aspen muttered. “Because, like, it is. You gave them a whole metaphor about sunlight and glitter, and it’s still about a man who’s a hundred years old watching a seventeen-year-old nap.”
A voice — smooth, too familiar — cut through her fog.
“Say it… out loud.”
Aspen froze. Her eyes darted to the television across the room — dark screen, unplugged.
“…vampire,” she whispered, then scowled. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, really? Movie quotes now? What’s next, Muse playing in surround sound?”
“Hold on tight, spider monkey.”
She groaned, pressing the pillow over her face. “I swear to God, Meyer, I will fight you in a Denny’s parking lot.”
She turned her head toward the window, blinking blearily. Rain smeared the view into watercolor. Her reflection looked off — like someone was puppeteering her expression a half-second too slow.
“This isn’t your story,” whispered that reflection, lips moving without her.
Aspen exhaled shakily. “It’s my body though, sweetheart.”
The door creaked open.
Jasper stood there, hesitant, his eyes gentler than they had any right to be. He didn’t move closer — Carlisle’s warning still fresh — but she could feel the weight of his presence pressing against her half-conscious mind.
She laughed softly, voice slurring. “Oh, it’s you. The unblinking cowboy.”
He blinked, almost on cue. “I do blink,” he said quietly.
“Sure you do,” Aspen whispered. “And I’m the next protagonist. Wait— maybe that’s the joke. You’re my side quest, huh?”
He frowned faintly, but didn’t answer.
Aspen’s thoughts skipped again — her mind glitching mid-sentence. “Tell Meyer I’m not dying yet,” she mumbled, then looked at him again. “You hear me? I’m not some lesson. I’m not… filler for the Swan girl.”
Jasper didn’t understand the words, but he felt the pulse of her emotion — defiance blazing through pain and fear. It rattled him.
She slumped back into the pillow, eyes drooping. “If I see another chapter title named after a weather pattern, I’m breaking the fourth wall again.”
Her voice drifted into sleep as the monitor beeped steady and slow.
Jasper lingered longer than he should’ve, watching her chest rise and fall. Something about her — her strange scent, her fractured mind, her impossible will — made him feel human and lost all at once.
Outside the door, Carlisle waited, watching him with quiet concern. “You shouldn’t stay too long.”
Jasper nodded faintly but didn’t move yet. His hand twitched toward her, stopping halfway. “She keeps sayin’ things that don’t belong here,” he murmured.
“Things no one should know.”
Carlisle’s expression tightened. “Then we have more to worry about than her recovery.”
Aspen woke up to the smell of antiseptic and cheap perfume — the kind her stepmother, Trish, bathed in like holy water. The hospital room hummed softly, full of machines keeping rhythm with her heart. Her throat burned, her skin itched, and for one very long second, she couldn’t tell if she was dead, reincarnated, or stuck in a bad fanfiction.
“Oh, sweetie, you’re awake!” Trish cooed like she was announcing the birth of a royal baby. “And look who came to visit again! Your friends from school — such good boys.”
Aspen blinked, vision blurring before sharpening into something much worse. Edward Cullen. Hair gelled like a shampoo commercial, expression unreadable. Beside him — Jasper, awkward and still as a porcelain soldier.
Trish beamed, oblivious. “They’ve been visiting every day! Isn’t that sweet? Dr. Cullen really has raised such polite—”
Adán, Aspen’s father, cut in from the corner, voice tight as a clenched fist. “They’ve been here too much.”
Trish’s hand fluttered toward him, whispering something about “manners” and “gratefulness.”
Edward smiled politely, but Aspen could feel his discomfort, the way he tried not to inhale too much, probably because she smelled like saline, gauze, and trauma. Jasper’s eyes flicked from her to the floor — or maybe to the fresh scars under the hospital gown she hadn’t dared look at yet.
Aspen tried to swallow. Pain flared down her throat. She wanted to speak — to ask why they looked like models haunting her recovery arc — but her voice cracked, only a dry croak escaping.
Carlisle entered just in time to rescue her from the awkward silence, clipboard in hand and a doctor’s grin perfectly intact.
“Well, looks like our girl here is going to make a full recovery,” he said lightly, eyes flicking to Edward and Jasper. “You two seem to be following my career path rather… enthusiastically.”
Edward forced a small laugh. Jasper didn’t.
Aspen’s frown deepened. Her arms felt heavy. She shifted slightly, and something tugged on her back — bandaged and raw. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the polished window — faint red marks along her neck, a scar peeking from under her gown. New scars. Ones she didn’t have before the “rewrite.”
Her stomach twisted.
Meyer, what did you do to me now?
Carlisle was still talking, something about infection and healing, but Aspen wasn’t listening. The world shimmered slightly at the edges, like reality was buffering. She caught Edward’s gaze — sharp, intent — and something in the air tightened.
He knew.
Aspen’s lips twitched. Her first words came out hoarse, half-whispered:
“So… I’m guessing none of you brought a mirror for me to dramatically smash?”
Carlisle chuckled softly, humoring her. “Let’s save the dramatics for later, shall we?”
But Edward’s jaw flexed. Jasper looked away. Adán’s glare only deepened.
Aspen felt the atmosphere thicken with everything unsaid — the polite lies, the hidden hunger, the author’s invisible hand tightening around her plot thread.
She wanted to scream that she wasn’t supposed to be here — that she wasn’t Bella, or a love interest, or a disposable side character.
Instead, she just sighed, muttering under her breath, “Of course. Out of every fictional world… I get stuck in the one where the monsters sparkle.”
Edward stiffened at that.
Carlisle, still in his perfect doctor’s composure, smiled faintly and said, “Rest now, Aspen. You’ve had quite the ordeal.”
Aspen nodded weakly but her eyes flicked toward Jasper. He stood just behind Edward, unreadable — yet his emotions leaked through like static: confusion, guilt, a strange protective pull.
As everyone began to file out, Jasper lingered. Aspen watched him, eyes half-lidded, then rasped out a whisper meant only for him:
“You blinked this time.”
He froze.
Then — just barely — he smiled.
Chapter 3: Where is the Swan?! Oh God- it's just You!
Summary:
Aspen on the chase and the case!
Jacob thinks they really need to stop meeting like this!
Aspen trying to outwit the author and maybe some vampires, probably win Sam's trust- perhaps have her loyal to the wolves and their tribe. After of course "taming" Jasper!
Disclaimer: I want to say is to tribes that have their own protective ways, charms, and select customs this is not a hit piece nor the holy thou I know better you shit too! I will say I respectfully want us to respect anyone of indigenous nation or tribe, buy from them when you can, and please don't be a dick... I have some information that might not be 100% correct, so like uh fund your local tribes if you can please!
Love y'all
Notes:
Made Aspen a slut- the bad one of the stories, she will be rival to Bella...haha that what Meyer wants but will see- well technically not a slut (No actual slut for dating or having a lot of crushes on people but you soon get what I mean!)
Aspen being like no love please?
Meyer like you know what fuck you, and your bullshit now you go a lot of dates with the wolf pack you harlot for making fun of my series!
Aspen but I am like 26 trapped in my teen state here, I think this very unfair to me and the characters of this story truly setting them up for failure and heartache because I will be on a "date" with them but I sure you it will not end well for the both of us! I can't actually give them what they want ultimately because that would be very wrong, you know?!
Meyer will too fucking bad, bitch! Either that or the love triangle will happen anyhow-
Aspen, I believe this a trap I think you make me go on many dates with everyone then get sucked into a love square with the main three for more drama for your fans this multiverse and I am very scared of you now trying kill me off- please be normal Steph?!
Aspen, Steph?! Please answer- no baby reemmessft or however you spell it!
Meyer so, they are destined and Jacob has to have mate with a baby for the series end happily ever after how I want it in my dreams!!
Aspen ew- sick fuck...
Meyer that's it you are the whore in this book series
Aspen aw man- I wanted to be relatable troublemaker with golden heart trope; I guess will be the whore fear scandal of the 2000s
I think that's what Meyers would do to me truly because I bet, she would hate me
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The morning of Aspen’s discharge began before dawn, Forks still wrapped in fog like a half-forgotten dream.
Her hospital room buzzed softly under the fluorescent lights, smelling of rubbing alcohol and cafeteria pancakes. Dr. Cullen’s voice — calm, soothing, eternal — guided her through the steps of tending her wounds.
“Change your bandages daily,” he said, handing her a small white bag of ointments and gauze. “Avoid hot water on your back for at least a week, and if the pain worsens—”
“Call you?” Aspen mumbled sleepily, already halfway leaning against her stepmother’s shoulder.
Carlisle smiled that immaculate doctor-smile. “Exactly.”
Behind him, Adán stood stiff as a soldier. He’d already cornered the doctor earlier, and his face still burned red with restrained protectiveness. “And you can tell your sons,” he said pointedly, “that my daughter’s too young to be dating. Especially after… all this.”
Carlisle blinked once, then twice — the faintest sign of discomfort. “My sons?”
“Yes, your sons!” Trish chimed in brightly, pretending to smooth things over. “They’ve been visiting her every day! Don’t think I didn’t notice all that doting!”
Aspen started laughing — the loopy, unfiltered kind only painkillers could inspire. “Oh nooo, Daddy’s jealous of vampires~”
“¡Aspen Milagros Arroyo!” Adán hissed, scandalized.
Carlisle cleared his throat. “I assure you, Mr. Arroyo, Jasper and Edward were only—”
“—being creepy stalkers,” Aspen interrupted, giggling. “I mean, caring friends.”
Carlisle exhaled through his nose in what might’ve been a prayer for patience. “Right. That.”
By the time they signed the release papers, the sun was just peeking over the treeline. Aspen felt like she was walking through a dream — or more accurately, like someone else was flipping through the pages of her story too fast.
Forks High, Monday morning.
Aspen dragged her backpack through the front doors like she was crossing into purgatory. The world seemed just slightly… off.
The hallway bulletin board still had Valentine’s Day flyers, though she swore it had been October before the attack. Her locker had been moved two spaces down, yet her books were already inside.
And the calendar above the main office? March.
March?!
Aspen froze, staring blankly. She’d lost almost a lifetime?!
“Yo, Aspen!” Mike Newton jogged past, waving. “Glad you’re back! You missed midterms!”
Midterms. The word hit like a snowball to the face. “What the—”
Before she could finish, Angela Weber approached with a gentle smile and a Get Well Soon card. Inside was something that instantly lifted Aspen’s spirits: a pristine holographic Mewtwo EX card.
“Oh my god,” Aspen gasped, holding it up like a sacred artifact. “Blessed day. Blessed timeline.”
Angela blinked. “Uh, it’s just a Pokémon card?”
“Not to me, it’s not,” Aspen whispered reverently, tucking it into her binder.
But even as she settled into her desk during homeroom, something continued to hum beneath reality’s surface. A pull. She caught the faintest whiff of apples and rain — that specific scent every Twilight reader knew belonged to one girl.
She turned. No Bella. Not yet.
Still, her deskmate’s computer glitched for a second, showing a half-rendered student file labeled SWAN, ISABELLA MARIE – TRANSFER PENDING.
Aspen’s stomach dropped. The author’s moving the story forward.
Jasper watched the fog curl over the hospital parking lot long after Aspen and her family had left. The world felt unstable — like the edges of a map shifting beneath his boots.
For the first time in decades, he felt lost in time.
When he tried to recall details from the past week, they didn’t quite line up. He remembered her attack… then her recovery… then—something else, blurred, rewritten. The emotions didn’t match the events. It was like remembering two histories at once.
He stood outside, hands shoved into his coat pockets, listening to the ambient pulse of emotion around Forks — the steady human hum. But Aspen’s energy was different. Chaotic, patchy, like static through a radio.
She was human. He knew that. But there was something unfinished about her.
He’d asked Alice about it once, but her voice had gone soft and uneasy:
“I can’t see her, Jazz. Like she doesn’t belong to the timeline I’m watching.”
Now that thought gnawed at him. Aspen felt like a missing variable — a human presence the world kept trying to correct, and couldn’t.
Perhaps she was psychic in some way — a human echo of Alice’s own gift. Or maybe…
He glanced east, toward the La Push border. Only one wolf existed right now — Sam Uley. But why had he been protecting her?
Jasper’s jaw tightened. His instincts screamed danger and difference, but beneath that, something subtler: recognition.
Aspen had looked at him — bleeding, broken — and said, “You blinked this time.”
And somehow, that mattered.
Aspen’s fourth-period free block had become her unofficial “stay sane” time — a soft patch of normalcy wedged between surreal days that all smelled faintly of antiseptic, rain, and déjà vu. She sat on the damp picnic table outside Forks High, sketchbook open, earbuds in, trying to sketch the fog the way it felt rather than how it looked.
The air bit cold through her sweater. Someone was doing ollies near the cracked asphalt, the slap of a skateboard echoing like a heartbeat. Another group shared a bag of chips and laughed too loudly over something dumb. The sound grounded her — real, she thought, this is real.
Then her pencil slipped.
Across the quad, a battered silver Volvo appeared in a spot that had been empty two seconds ago — the kind of cinematic glitch you’d never notice unless you’d been watching the world too carefully. Aspen stared at it, her earbuds humming faintly with “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne (2002). She blinked, and the Volvo was gone.
She pressed her fingers to her temples. Okay. Okay. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe they changed the parking lot layout.
Except… her sketchbook had a new doodle in it — something she didn’t remember drawing. The word “Bella?” scrawled between half-finished graphite fog lines.
Her gaze drifted toward the school building. Through a window, she thought she saw a brunette girl — soft flannel, shy posture — but it flickered like a projection, replaced by a cluster of students she recognized.
Aspen swallowed hard. “What the hell is happening?” she whispered to herself.
Then came the quotes. They floated on the wind, voices that didn’t belong to any living person near her — “I’d rather die than stay away from you.” She froze. That wasn’t from anyone here. That was from the book. From Twilight.
Her pen moved almost automatically.
Maybe living forever means losing something fundamental.
They forget how to breathe and call it transcendence.
They don’t cherish life; they hoard it.
Immortality costs your pulse.
She stared at what she’d written. “No wonder the fans hated them sometimes,” she muttered. “I’m definitely a werewolf-type girl.” Her laugh came out shaky, but real.
Then, as if the sky were in on the joke, a gust of wind flipped her open notebook to a fresh page — one that read, faintly in graphite that wasn’t hers:
You don’t belong here, Aspen.
Jasper POV
That afternoon, the Cullen house was quiet — the kind of quiet that had weight. Jasper stood near the piano, hands behind his back, trying to steady his thoughts. Alice sat on the stool, chin resting on her hand, staring out the rain-streaked window.
“She’s changing things,” he said finally. His voice carried the rasp of someone afraid of what they already knew. “I can feel it in the atmosphere — it’s like the current’s off.”
Alice didn’t turn to him. “You think she’s doing it on purpose?”
“No,” Jasper admitted. “But the threads… they move around her. I remembered Bella coming to Forks in March. Now the school records say February. It’s like my mind’s rewriting itself around her.”
Alice’s brows knit. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Jasper stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You said you can’t see her future. But what if it’s not that she hasn’t made decisions yet — what if she’s rewriting the decisions everyone else already made?”
Alice finally turned, her eyes sharp with something between awe and fear. “You’re saying she’s changing fate.”
“I’m saying,” Jasper replied, “she might not be human in the way we understand it. Maybe part wolf, maybe part… something else. Or maybe she’s something the universe made to test us.”
Alice looked down, fingers tracing the piano keys without sound. “And what do we do with someone like that?”
Jasper hesitated, glancing toward the mist-shrouded forest beyond the window.
“…We protect her,” he said softly. “Or we lose ourselves.”
By fifth period, Aspen had officially decided the universe had lost its last marble.
The day had started normal enough — if you ignored how her history teacher now claimed she’d turned in an essay on the “founding of Forks” that she absolutely did not remember writing, or how her locker contained a polaroid of her and Bella Swan laughing together in a cafeteria that, to Aspen’s knowledge, had never happened yet.
Forks was folding in on itself, she thought. Like wet paper in the rain, softening, tearing, becoming something new.
By lunch, she’d seen it the first time: a swan.
Elegant, snowy white, neck curved in that perfect ballet posture. It stood in the middle of the quad fountain, preening as if it belonged there. No one else noticed. Kids walked past it, laughing, phones out, eating fries — and the bird just stared at her.
Then came the duckling.
Tiny, soaked, and pitifully quacking at her by the vending machines near the gym. It waddled after her, webbed feet squeaking against the linoleum, but the moment someone else turned their head — gone.
Like smoke.
By last period, Aspen was sweating through her hoodie. She kept muttering under her breath, “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re metaphors with feathers, please leave me alone.”
When the bell rang, she bolted outside — maybe the air would help — but the swan was there again, shimmering in the fog near the baseball field, and the duckling quacked in miserable harmony behind it.
Aspen’s head spun.
She fumbled through her backpack and came out with the first thing she could find — a half-frozen bag of peas she’d swiped from the cafeteria freezer earlier (they’d said “for muscle cramps,” but she’d just wanted something cold to press against her scars).
Now she was on her knees on the grass, peas in hand, whispering frantic apologies to the hallucination-duck world. “Listen, I get it, I’m the ugly duckling, okay? I get the symbolism, you win! Can I just have one normal day, please?”
She let out a desperate quack.
“Aspen?”
Her head shot up — and there was Edward Cullen, every inch the marble statue of judgment, standing over her like a substitute teacher catching a kid eating glue.
He blinked once, slowly. “You’re… feeding peas to the air?”
“I’m negotiating,” she said faintly, as if that explained everything.
Edward’s golden eyes flicked from her to the invisible pond she was staring at. He crouched, voice wary. “You’ve been… distracted today.”
“Distracted?” Aspen barked a laugh. “You mean reality is rewriting itself around me, my notebook keeps making entries I didn’t write, teachers think I’ve been here longer than I have, and now I’m Snow White with an aquatic bird entourage—” she gasped dramatically, “so yes, Edward, I’m distracted.”
Edward hesitated, clearly unsure if she was joking or unraveling. “You stole those peas.”
Aspen blinked. “Excuse me?”
“From the cafeteria freezer,” he said, tone flat. “You’re holding stolen cafeteria produce.”
She stared at the bag, then back up at him. “I’m fighting metaphors with legumes, Cullen. Let me have this.”
Behind him, Emmett and Rosalie were watching from a distance near the parking lot, both pretending very badly not to be amused.
Even Alice had that barely-contained sparkle of delight in her eyes, like she’d seen this moment a dozen times already.
Aspen groaned, rubbing her temples. “You all see me, right? Like, actually me? You’re not remembering some other version of me that suddenly existed last week?”
Edward’s brow furrowed. “Why would I—”
“Because,” Aspen said, voice rising with a nervous laugh, “Forks keeps changing! My math teacher called me by a different last name, my sketchbook drew a whole page about Bella Swan before she’s even here, and the calendar says it’s April when yesterday was March!”
Edward opened his mouth — then closed it.
For the first time in his life (or unlife), he didn’t seem to have a ready-made answer.
Aspen slumped, clutching her peas. “At least it wasn’t another Cullen that found me, right?” she muttered. “God forbid Carlisle walks in on me quacking again.”
Edward’s lips twitched. “…Again?”
“Don’t start with me, vampire boy.”
She stood, brushing off her knees, and glanced back at the spot where the swan and duckling had been. They were gone. Only the fog and a faint ripple in a puddle remained — like laughter she couldn’t hear.
For the rest of the walk home, Aspen carried her two sacred relics:
-
Jacob’s old, worn notebook, pages filled with thoughts she didn’t remember writing.
-
Trish’s sketchbook, now half-possessed by scenes from a book that hadn’t yet happened.
And for a flicker of a second, as Edward’s shadow disappeared behind her, she thought she heard a voice whisper — the same one from her medicated dreams:
You’re rewriting me, Aspen.
You shouldn’t be here.
Edward didn’t drive home right away.
He couldn’t.
The sound of Aspen’s voice—her frantic quacking, her nonsensical yet somehow terrifyingly lucid ramblings—lingered like static at the edge of his mind. He was used to other people’s thoughts humming in his head: jealousy, worry, hunger, lust, boredom. They were ordinary, human frequencies. Predictable.
But now… there was something else.
A new frequency.
It crackled softly under the surface of his awareness, like the faint sound of a radio tuning between stations. Except instead of words, it came in flashes—images, sensations, snippets of things that did not exist.
A school hallway filled with fog.
A page turning itself in a notebook.
A voice that wasn’t his or anyone’s he knew whispering “Plot correction.”
He slammed his hand against the steering wheel, forcing the noise away. You’re imagining it.
But then—
“Edward, you can’t save everyone, remember?”
“Don’t let her rewrite you too.”
“Don’t let her see me.”
The voice wasn’t human. It wasn’t even coherent. It came in with the cadence of thought but the weight of something else—something outside of this world, like a puppeteer’s whisper bleeding through the strings.
He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes.
And yet, under all that dissonance… Aspen’s laughter lingered.
Wild, cracked, and utterly alive.
Back at the Cullens’ house, Alice waited on the porch like she’d been expecting him. She had that serene, infuriating little smile—the kind that said she knew something and wasn’t sharing.
“I saw her,” she said before he could even ask.
Edward froze mid-step. “You had a vision of Aspen?”
Alice nodded, tucking a short strand of hair behind her ear. “Sort of. It wasn’t… clean. Like looking through water.” Her eyes unfocused briefly, as if she were still half-seeing it. “She was with someone. Another girl—dark hair, pale, kind eyes.”
“Bella,” Edward breathed before he could stop himself.
Alice’s smile faltered. “Maybe. Or maybe someone meant to be Bella.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
But Alice’s eyes softened—sorrow, understanding. “I didn’t say it to hurt you. I said it because I think Aspen’s not what she seems. She’s a variable—like fate’s static made solid.”
Edward turned away, staring into the mist that shrouded the forest line. In the distance, he could still hear Aspen’s voice echoing faintly in his mind.
“She’s rewriting me, Edward. Don’t let her rewrite you too.”
Meanwhile, at the edge of town—Aspen was sprinting barefoot through wet grass, mud splashing up her jeans as she chased the phantom duckling toward the woods behind Forks High. Her chest ached, stitches pulling where her scars still healed, but she didn’t care.
“Come back here, little metaphor!” she shouted, voice cracking.
The rain slicked her hair to her cheeks, the October chill biting at her skin. But it wasn’t just the cold making her shake—it was fear. Because she could hear the other voice again. The one that didn’t belong to her.
It was Bella’s voice.
Soft. Human. Fragile.
“I never wanted kids,” it whispered faintly through the rain.
“Never wanted forever. But she made me. She wrote me that way.”
Aspen stumbled to a stop in the clearing—the meadow again. Of course. Everything ended up here.
The swan was standing in the center of it, glowing faintly in the fog.
The duckling huddled close to its side.
Aspen’s throat burned. “I get it. You’re the future and the past. Swan and duckling. Bella and me. Whatever metaphor you’re feeding me—fine. Just—don’t die again.”
Her voice cracked. “Don’t let Meyer erase you. Or me.”
She didn’t see Jasper watching her from the trees—silent, tense, the memory of her blood and screams still fresh in his mind.
He felt her emotions like flickers of light in a storm: fear, defiance, grief, self-awareness. It was more human than anything he’d felt in decades. And beneath it all was something that made him shudder—an awareness pressing against his world, like someone testing the edges of a dream.
Alice joined him, her voice quiet. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
Jasper didn’t answer at first. He was staring at Aspen—how she was shaking, how she was talking to the fog like it could answer her back.
Finally, he said, “It’s like she’s… remembering something none of us should.”
Alice’s lips parted. “Edward thinks she’s dangerous.”
“She’s not dangerous,” Jasper murmured. “She’s awake.”
The world went black.
Not the soft, familiar kind of darkness that followed nightfall—this was erasure, cold and final.
Edward was mid-thought, mid-breath even, when it hit: the feeling of being swallowed by a silence so deep it unmade sound itself. One second he was in the woods, the next… nowhere. No trees, no scent, no time.
A voice—massive, invisible, unmerciful—echoed through the emptiness:
You are out of character.
You are not meant to know her name.
He tried to speak, but his mouth no longer existed. He felt Alice’s panic flicker somewhere near him—briefly—before that too was erased.
The voice continued, almost sighing now:
This story was never yours to question.
Reset the scene. October. Forks. Before she arrives.
And just like that—
Reality snapped shut.
Aspen came to with a gasp that tore through her ribs. Morning light spilled across her comforter, soft and warm. Birds chirped outside her window. The world was normal again. Too normal.
Her head pounded like she’d been hit by a cosmic hammer. She blinked at the date on her alarm clock: October 31, 2004.
“What the—”
Her voice came out hoarse, almost frightened. She touched her notebook on the nightstand, flipping through it for proof—something, anything from her nightmare—but all her wild scribbles about “The Author,” “the Swan,” “the duckling,” and “Jasper’s blank eyes” were gone. Neat homework pages stared back at her instead.
“I dreamed that, right?” she whispered. “Just… one hell of a fever dream.”
Her phone buzzed violently against her thigh before she could think more about it. The caller ID nearly made her drop it.
Leah Clearwater.
Aspen frowned. “Wait—how the hell did I get her number?”
She answered anyway, voice groggy. “Uh… hi?”
Leah’s sharp tone came like claws through the receiver.
“Don’t ‘hi’ me, Aspen! You better not stand Paul up today!
The guy’s actually trying, which is rare for him. You seriously agreed to this?”
Aspen froze. “I—what? No, I didn’t—”
Her voice caught midsentence as her mouth, traitorous and strange, said something entirely different.
“Sam asked me to go. I owe him one.”
Aspen blinked. That wasn’t me. That wasn’t—
“Fine,” Leah snapped, the tension softening just a little. “But if he gets stupid or cocky, call me, got it?”
The line went dead.
Aspen sat there in stunned silence, staring at the phone. She could feel the faint vibration of the universe humming wrong beneath her fingertips again—like someone had hit “resume” on a paused game she didn’t remember starting.
Paul Lahote.
Sam Uley.
The reservation.
Her heart dropped.
The Author must’ve hit reset.
She stood up, pacing her small bedroom. “Okay, Aspen,” she muttered. “You survived being attacked by a vampire, you fought God’s favorite family, and now the plot wants to make you date a hot-headed werewolf.” She groaned. “Classic Meyer move.”
She stopped at the window and peered outside. Forks looked untouched. The same gray drizzle, the same sleepy quiet. Yet something was off.
Across the street, she saw Edward’s Volvo parked like always—but when she focused, she realized his eyes didn’t follow her like before.
He was reading a book, still and detached. Alice waved from the passenger seat like they’d never shared that eerie forest conversation.
“Back to square one,” Aspen whispered. “Great.”
But in her chest, she felt something flicker—a spark the Author couldn’t erase. A quiet, burning thought that didn’t belong to this rewritten world:
You’re still aware. You still remember.
Aspen flipped through her notebook, the edges soft and worn from constant use. The pages were cluttered with her thoughts, sketches, and random timestamps—her private code for keeping track of everything that didn’t quite make sense lately. She frowned at the entry marked October 26th.
“Became friends(?) with Jasper — reluctant allies with emotional bond (his words, not mine).”
She rolled her eyes softly but smiled. Emotional bond, sure. Maybe more like trauma buddies. Still, the words felt heavier than she wanted to admit. Underneath that note, her scrawl continued:
“Jacob, Quil, Embry — weekend hangout. Still sore (bear attack excuse holding). Quil’s new nickname for me: ‘Compass Girl.’ Said I keep everyone pointed in the right direction even when I’m lost. Kind of sweet. Kind of insulting.”
She drew a doodle of a wolf pawprint beside it without thinking.
That date mattered, Sam had said. He’d been unusually tense, keeping an eye on everyone—especially the younger guys. “Something’s stirring,” he’d told her, his tone sharp with that quiet authority she couldn’t ignore. “Just… let me know if any of them start acting strange.”
Now Aspen wondered if Sam could already sense what she couldn’t—another wolf taking shape somewhere in the tangle of their lives.
She exhaled, closing her notebook with a soft thud. “Meyer’s gonna kill me,” she muttered. She still felt bad about their last argument. Aspen grabbed her phone, thumb hovering over her messages before deciding to just say it out loud to the air, as if Meyer could hear her.
“I’m sorry I called the meadow lame,” she said honestly, her voice softer than she meant. “I just think it’s… lame that two white lovers can claim land like that, you know? Land doesn’t belong to anyone—not even me. It’s sweet you think the meadow represents their love, but honestly? It’d fit better if it was a snowy place. Or a cold waterfall hidden somewhere. That feels more like them.”
Her apology hung in the air, half a confession and half a prayer that her strange new friend—if Meyer could even be called that—would forgive her for being blunt.
Then she remembered her “date.” Aspen groaned, rubbing her temples.
“Being an adult trapped in a teen’s body seriously sucks,” she muttered, staring at the closet. “Do I even wear makeup to this thing?”
The sound of the notebook closing was the cue to shift scenes—to somewhere colder, quieter, and humming faintly with fluorescent light.
Carlisle’s POV
Forks Hospital at midnight had a peculiar hum—too soft to be mechanical, too natural to ignore. Carlisle sat at his desk, reviewing patient files illuminated by the monitor’s glow. Aspen A.’s records were open again, though he’d already read them three times.
Something didn’t line up.
Dates shifted. Allergies appeared, then disappeared. Her vaccination records—updated last week—had an older format he hadn’t seen in years. It was as though someone were rewriting history, but subtly, almost playfully, just enough to make a careful mind notice.
And then there was her bloodwork.
He leaned closer. The markers in her hemoglobin density were… peculiar. Not impossible, but rare—extremely rare outside of Quileute lineage. Yet Aspen’s file didn’t list any connection. It should’ve been impossible for him to feel a chill at all, but something close to it rippled through him.
A human girl with blood that resonates like a wolf’s?
Carlisle’s gaze shifted to the hallway window just as a familiar voice chirped from beyond.
“Doctor Cullen!”
Trish stood there, smiling, a coffee cup in one hand, purse dangling loosely from her wrist. Aspen’s stepmother—overly chatty, visibly eager to talk.
“Ah, Mrs. Nichols,” Carlisle greeted warmly, standing with his usual grace. “It’s good to see you. Aspen’s recovering well, I hope?”
“Oh, she’s always bouncing back from something,” Trish laughed lightly, stepping closer. “She’s a handful, that one. You wouldn’t believe half the things she’s been into lately.”
Carlisle’s polite smile didn’t falter, but inwardly, he was alert. Perfect.
Maybe he didn’t have to dig through hospital systems after all. Some answers might be sitting right in front of him, offering coffee and gossip about a girl who shouldn’t still be alive.
Carlisle folded his hands gently on the desk, the model of patient curiosity, though his mind whirred like a finely tuned clock. Trish’s chatter was unfiltered, unguarded—a small river of information that carried hints of something deeper if he listened just right.
“She’s lucky,” he said softly, his eyes flicking back to the file. “Most people wouldn’t have survived wounds like hers. You mentioned she was attacked by a bear?”
Trish nodded too quickly, the way people do when they’ve rehearsed an answer. “That’s what the police said. And Aspen… well, she didn’t argue. Poor thing doesn’t remember much, you know? All blood loss and shock. It’s easier to call it a bear.”
Carlisle leaned back slightly, the faintest crease forming between his brows. Easier to call it a bear. He’d heard that before—from families who didn’t want to believe what they’d seen.
“She’s fortunate,” he murmured. “Very few would survive an attack like that without… extensive scarring.”
“Oh, she’s got scars,” Trish said quickly. “But she covers them. Always has. Bandages, long sleeves, that sort of thing.” She laughed, but it wavered. “She’s sensitive about them. Says they’re reminders of something she wasn’t supposed to forget.”
Carlisle’s gaze softened, but inside he was cataloguing every word. Something she wasn’t supposed to forget. His eyes fell briefly to a photo clipped to the corner of Aspen’s file—a recent ID picture where the faint outline of a pendant that shifted to a bag could be seen around her neck.
“Speaking of reminders,” he said gently, “that necklace she always wears—the wolf medallion-well I mean wolf medicine bag. I’ve noticed she refuses to remove it, even during examinations. Is it… sentimental?”
Trish blinked, surprised at the question, but her face softened. “Oh, that old thing? She’s had it forever. Bought it herself when she was eight, can you believe that?”
Carlisle raised a brow, his tone politely interested. “At eight?”
“Mm-hmm.” Trish smiled, the memory brightening her face. “Saved all her birthday money, allowance, even tried doing yard work for neighbors. Her mom—Paz—helped her buy it. Said it was better than what Aspen really wanted.”
Carlisle tilted his head. “And what was that?”
“A deer skull with antlers!” Trish laughed, shaking her head. “Can you imagine an eight-year-old wanting something like that? Paz told her absolutely not. But the Apache-Tsalagi family running the little shop in her hometown—they were so sweet about it. Talked her into the necklace instead. Told her it would protect her and guide her.”
Carlisle’s interest sharpened. “Apache-Tsalagi, you said?”
“Yes, from back home. In Texas—Aspen was born there, but most of the family’s from Mexico. Big, mixed heritage. French, Spanish, Afro-Latino, even a bit of Filipino, I think? Her mother knows the details better—Paz keeps up with that side of the family. But most of them…” Trish hesitated. “Well, most of them never left Mexico. They don’t talk much with us.”
He nodded thoughtfully, piecing it together. Her blood resonating faintly with the Quileute markers might not be direct lineage—it could be something older, something that tangled through tribes and migration long before Forks ever existed.
“So she’s always been drawn to… spiritual things?” Carlisle asked, his voice warm, almost fatherly.
“Oh, always!” Trish said with a little laugh. “History, old traditions, ghost stories, you name it. She used to talk to that necklace like it was a friend. Said it helped her make choices, find her way when she got scared.” Trish’s smile softened further. “She’s strange, but she’s got a good heart. Always trying to understand people who aren’t like her.”
Carlisle’s eyes lingered on the wolf medallion in the photo once more. A child saving her money to buy a talisman that resonated with protection, wolf imagery, and ancient craftsmanship—it was too specific to be coincidence.
“Fascinating,” he murmured. “She must have felt… called to it.”
Trish chuckled, taking a sip of her coffee. “Called, huh? Yeah, that’s one word for it. Between you and me, I think that little Apache-Tsalagi family still has half her savings somewhere. She’s been sending them money ever since she learned how to use a saving account.”
Carlisle’s polite smile hid the faint spark of realization blooming behind his eyes. A wolf spirit medallion of sorts. Spiritual lineage. Protection. A ‘bear’ attack that mimics venomous feeding wounds.
Perhaps the girl wasn’t just surviving miracles—perhaps she was one.
Carlisle leaned forward in his chair as Trish talked, her nervous laughter peppering the air like rain on glass.
It was remarkable how much affection she held for the girl—not blood but bonded through the kind of love that made you claim someone as yours anyway. He could feel it in her voice, a mother’s rhythm beneath the chatter.
“She’s… complicated,” Trish said with a small laugh. “Sweet, but she’s got all these allergies and sensitivities. Seasonal stuff, some detergents give her hives—oh, and don’t even try giving her some of those common pain meds. The last time a doctor did that, she went full paranoid, like, hallucinating level. We had to switch her prescription completely.”
Carlisle nodded, the physician in him listening with interest, the immortal beneath processing every detail with precision. “I see,” he said gently. “So her body reacts… unusually?”
Trish sighed, fiddling with the strap of her purse. “You could say that. Sometimes I think she’s wired differently. But she’s always been strong. Even after the bear thing, she bounced back faster than anyone thought. My husband says it’s like she’s built of something stubborn.”
Carlisle smiled faintly at that. Stubborn was one way to describe a soul that refused to yield to fate itself.
“I imagine you worry about her a great deal,” he said softly.
“Oh, constantly.” Trish’s eyes softened. “I love her like my own. You can’t live with a kid like Aspen and not get attached. She’s just… good. Too good for her own safety sometimes.” She chuckled again, then added conspiratorially, “My husband thinks your sons—uh, Jasper and Edward, right?—might be interested in her.”
Carlisle’s brows rose slightly, though his face remained serene.
“He’s convinced they’ve got a thing for her,” Trish went on. “We told her she’s not dating until she’s eighteen. House rule. But between you and me, I think those boys are a little too quiet to actually make a move.”
Carlisle smiled—kind, measured, concealing the tiny coil of unease winding beneath his ribs.
That evening, the hospital’s sterile lights faded into the amber warmth of the Cullens’ home. Esme was seated by the window, sketching plans for another renovation—her eyes lifting with that soft, radiant warmth that never failed to ground him.
Carlisle removed his coat and joined her, the weight of Trish’s words still lingering like static in the air.
“Another long day?” Esme asked, her smile knowing.
He nodded, resting a hand lightly on the back of her chair. “I spoke with Aspen’s stepmother,” he said quietly. “She’s… devoted. Deeply so. The kind of love that makes you forget you aren’t related by blood.”
Esme looked up, intrigued. “That’s lovely. You sound moved.”
“I am,” Carlisle admitted, his tone low. “She’s worried, of course. Aspen’s health, her… peculiarities. She’s allergic to many things, reacts violently to certain medicines. There’s a pattern to it—her body rejects foreign interference. Even her healing defies logic.”
Esme tilted her head, the corners of her mouth softening. “Like her body knows what it will and won’t allow.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And there’s more. Her ancestry—it’s an extraordinary mix. Mexican, French, Afro-Latino, Filipino… but there’s a thread that runs through it, something much older. Her family once lived near Apache and Tsalagi lands. The same cultures that spoke of wolves as protectors, healers, and spirits caught between two worlds.”
Esme’s gaze drifted to the fireplace, her eyes thoughtful. “You think she’s connected to the Quileute stories somehow?”
“Not directly,” Carlisle said slowly. “But perhaps to what came before. A precursor myth—something ancient enough to have been forgotten. Maybe the Quileutes inherited only a fragment of it. Aspen’s blood might carry the rest.”
There was silence for a beat, the kind that let thoughts hum softly between them. Carlisle looked out toward the woods where the faintest hint of moonlight brushed through the trees.
“Parents,” he said at last, almost wistfully, “never truly stop being parents. Even when their children are nearly grown, even when they’ve lived centuries, the instinct never dies. We want to protect, to understand, to guide.”
Esme smiled faintly, sliding her hand into his. “You’re thinking of Trish.”
“And of myself,” he admitted. “I see how she worries over Aspen, and I think—perhaps she’s right to. The girl has wandered into something much larger than she knows.”
From upstairs, the faintest shuffle of movement broke the quiet.
Edward, who’d been pretending to read, had stilled completely.
Carlisle didn’t have to look to know he was listening. He always did.
Something older than the Quileutes, Edward’s thoughts whispered faintly, unbidden, and she carries it without knowing… No wonder she feels different. She’s not bending reality—she’s remembering it.
Esme glanced upward, a flicker of awareness in her eyes. “He’s listening again,” she murmured.
Carlisle chuckled softly, though there was no humor in it. “Let him. Maybe he’ll understand that the answers he’s searching for don’t lie in her mind… but in her blood.”
Outside, a wolf’s howl echoed distantly through the trees. It wasn’t from La Push.
It was older—more mournful, more ancient.
And for the first time in a long while, Carlisle Cullen felt something he couldn’t explain: awe.
Edward Cullen moved like a shadow through the drizzle-slick streets of Forks, his steps silent, his coat blending into the mist. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was following her—only that Carlisle’s words had sunk into him like splinters he couldn’t remove.
Something older than the Quileutes…
He told himself it was curiosity. Scientific, even.
Aspen should have been at La Push, on her supposed “date” with Paul Lahote, but Edward caught her scent drifting the opposite direction—warm cedar smoke, iron, and faintly of the earth after lightning. It shouldn’t have been possible; the wolves’ scent always burned acrid in his throat, but hers was tempered, balanced, like nature itself refused to classify her as one or the other.
And then he saw her.
Aspen, standing on the edge of Forks’ main street, fluorescent light gleaming off the cheap plastic of her Leeloo Dallas costume from The Fifth Element. The orange wig was slightly crooked, the thermal bandage outfit layered modestly with tights and a jacket (Trish’s doing, no doubt), and she was brandishing a plastic candy bucket shaped like a jack-o’-lantern as if she were about to duel a ghost.
Beside her stood Paul Lahote, wearing a flannel shirt and an expression that said kill me now. Jacob Black and a few others from La Push hovered nearby, trading laughs and sarcastic comments.
“You’re way too old for this,” Paul muttered, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
Aspen turned to him, squinting with mock menace. “If you don’t behave,” she said matter-of-factly, “I’ll tell everyone on the rez tomorrow that you’re a bad kisser.”
Paul blinked, jaw slack. Jacob choked on a laugh.
Edward found himself smirking despite the twinge of unease curling in his chest. Even from a distance, he could sense how alive she was—her pulse thrumming steady beneath the damp October air, her laughter somehow vibrating through his senses more sharply than it should have.
And then he saw it.
The necklace.
The wolf medicine bag hung just below her collarbone, its leather soft and aged, embroidered with faded patterns that seemed to shift when caught in moonlight. It wasn’t decorative—he could feel that.
Something about it pressed against his consciousness like a whisper in a language he almost recognized.
He edged closer, following as she and her group wove through the darkened neighborhood. Every time he neared within a few yards, a strange static crept up his skin, like the air itself rejected him. His vision blurred slightly at the edges, his thoughts went fuzzy.
And worse—he couldn’t read her mind...this time around.
Usually, when humans wore metal, stone, or protection charms, they were nothing—harmless trinkets steeped in belief. But this one worked.
Every time the necklace caught the light, a low vibration rippled through Edward’s body, as if the world itself reminded him: You are not welcome here.
Centuries of study and quiet observation had taught Carlisle and Edward more than most mortals would ever know.
Edward remembered reading, decades ago, about medicine wolf bags—small pouches traditionally made by Native peoples such as the Apache, Cherokee (Tsalagi), and other tribes of the Southwest and Southeast.
Each bag was personal, sacred. Made from deer or buffalo hide, stitched with sinew or plant fiber, it carried herbs, stones, or small items chosen for spiritual protection and identity. A person’s medicine bag was never opened by another; doing so was said to break the bond between the wearer and their spirit guides.
For some tribes, the wolf medicine specifically represented loyalty, guidance, and the ability to navigate both the spirit and physical worlds—a bridge between human and divine. Wolves were seen not only as protectors but as teachers who reminded humans to trust their instincts and remember their origins.
Aspen’s bag, he realized, was old—not made for fashion or show. He could sense the oil of the leather, the faint burn of sage worked into its fibers, and something else beneath it—a mineral smell, cold and ancient, like moonstone or obsidian. It hummed faintly even to his dulled vampire hearing.
He wondered if the Apache-Tsalagi family Trish had mentioned had blessed it specifically for her.
The thought unsettled him.
Edward lingered in the shadows, watching Aspen lightheartedly trade candy with a younger child dressed as a vampire. Her laughter rang out again—clear, defiant, alive.
He took one step closer, testing the air again. The effect was instant: his breath caught, his throat burned, and for the first time in years, he felt something like… pain. Not physical—spiritual. A pressure in his chest, like the necklace itself pushed back against his presence.
Behind him, a whisper brushed his consciousness—something ancient, wordless, and feminine. A warning, maybe.
He drew back quickly, forcing the static out of his mind.
From across the street, Aspen turned suddenly—her gaze meeting his.
For one heartbeat, Edward was sure she saw him. Not in the way humans usually glanced past his kind, but with awareness. As if she could see straight through the glamour of the night, through the silence, through his eternal stillness.
Then Jacob threw an arm around her shoulders, laughing about something Paul had said, and the moment broke. Aspen rolled her eyes, muttering something about “Team Trick-or-Treat beats Team Sulky Werewolf any day.”
Edward slipped back into the forest’s shadow, chest tight, mind racing.
He shouldn’t care. She was human. She was temporary.
And yet—her presence had reached into the marrow of his being, twisting something that hadn’t moved since his heart stopped beating.
Maybe Carlisle was right.
Maybe Aspen wasn’t bending fate. Maybe she was fate—rewriting it from within, carried by bloodlines older than any vampire could remember.
Edward’s return to the Cullen house was as silent as the fog rolling over the mossy treetops. The white facade of the house glowed faintly beneath the moonlight—too peaceful, too still for the unease clawing at his mind.
He found Alice in her usual place, curled cross-legged on the sofa, flipping through Vogue with the kind of serene expression only someone who already knew tomorrow could wear. Jazz music played low on the old record player, a counterpoint to Edward’s inward storm.
Without a word, he spoke into her thoughts: You’ve seen her again, haven’t you?
Alice didn’t look up right away. “Good evening to you too, brooding one,” she said lightly, turning a page. “If you mean Aspen—then yes, sort of.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. Sort of?
Alice finally met his eyes. Her expression was complicated—curious, uncertain, even a little frustrated. “It’s the strangest thing,” she admitted. “Every time I try to focus on her, my vision flickers. Like an old film reel skipping frames. One moment she’s there, the next—she’s static. And it’s always when she’s wearing that necklace of hers.”
Edward began to pace, hands in his pockets, thoughts spiraling. That wolf medicine bag, he said internally, sharp and clipped. It interferes. When I’m near her, I can’t hear her thoughts at all. It’s not silence—it’s noise. A distortion, like feedback in my head.
Alice tilted her head, watching him with amused concern. “You’re spiraling,” she said, her voice gentle but teasing. “You think everything strange must be supernatural.”
“It is supernatural,” Edward snapped before catching himself. “You didn’t see what I felt tonight. When I came near her—it pushed back. She’s not just another human, Alice.”
“Mm,” Alice hummed, tapping her chin. “Maybe she’s just more… human than you’re used to.”
Edward glared, but she only grinned wider.
“Look,” she said, folding her magazine shut. “My theory? You can’t read her because she’s part of the Quileute circle somehow. Remember, Sam Uley’s been around her. Their tribe’s magic and ways are older than we know—whatever protects them from you probably rubs off on her. That necklace could have been blessed, or maybe it’s just symbolic. Either way, I think she’s fine. Human.”
Edward didn’t look convinced. His brow furrowed, thoughts dark and looping.
Alice sighed and leaned back. “You’re acting like she’s your nemesis or something. Do you hear yourself? Edward Cullen—the vampire who’s gone a century without hating anyone—suddenly can’t stand one confused, sarcastic human girl with a leather charm.”
“I don’t hate her,” he said quickly.
“Then what?”
He hesitated. “I… can’t define it.”
Alice smiled knowingly. “Then maybe you should talk to Jasper instead of pacing a trench in the floor. He’s closer to her than either of us right now—well, as close as he can be without terrifying her.”
Edward frowned, glancing toward the forest. Jasper. He’d been spending more time hovering near the hospital, or discreetly checking in with the La Push visitors. Maybe he knew something Edward didn’t.
“Go on,” Alice urged, nudging him mentally. “You’re not going to solve this by brooding in Morse code.”
Edward exhaled, a useless human reflex, and vanished into the night once more—his mind still echoing with the faint hum of that necklace and the memory of Aspen’s laughter.
Meanwhile, across town, Aspen Milagros Arroyo was having the most unexpectedly decent “date” of her rewritten existence.
The air was crisp with wood smoke and pumpkin spice from the Forks Fall Festival. Her orange Leeloo wig had gone slightly frizzy from the mist, but she didn’t care. She was too busy laughing at the sight of Paul Lahote—stoic, cocky, and utterly humiliated—wearing a hastily thrown-together “vampire hunter” costume with a wooden stake and plastic fangs tucked in his pocket.
“See? You’re getting into the spirit,” Aspen teased, balancing on a curb with her candy bucket swinging.
“I look ridiculous,” Paul grumbled, but there was a glint of amusement in his eyes.
“You looked more ridiculous five minutes ago when you tried to scare that group of middle schoolers and tripped over the fog machine.”
Jacob snorted so hard he nearly dropped his soda. “Oh man, Lahote, that was classic.”
“Shut it, Black,” Paul said, but he was smiling now—a real, reluctant grin that softened his usual scowl.
They moved as a group down the main street: Aspen, Paul, Jacob, Quil, and Embry. The boys were loud, teasing each other, occasionally diving into yards to spook trick-or-treaters, while Aspen just followed along, half in disbelief that this was her life now.
She’d expected the night to be awkward, maybe dull. Instead, it was alive.
Full-sized candy bars, laughter echoing against wet pavement, the sharp scent of autumn leaves—it all grounded her. Even if she was stuck in a story she didn’t belong to, tonight she could almost pretend it was her own world again.
“Hey, Arroyo,” Paul said suddenly, holding out a Snickers bar. “For you. Because you didn’t scream when Embry popped out of the bushes earlier.”
Aspen took it with mock solemnity. “High praise from the big bad wolf.”
He blinked. “The what now?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, smiling too wide. “Just a movie reference.”
Paul gave her a look but didn’t press. Instead, he just nodded toward the next street. “C’mon, Leeloo. There’s a haunted hayride over at Miller’s field.”
Aspen followed, feeling something strange and bittersweet settle in her chest.
She knew—knew—that soon this world would twist again, bend to whatever the author wanted next. But for now, under the orange glow of jack-o’-lanterns and the laughter of boys who would one day forget this simple human night, Aspen felt almost free.
Jasper stood in the treeline, the soft October fog draped over him like an old friend. He wasn’t used to feeling… curious. Not like this. Curiosity used to mean risk—an invitation to hunger, to losing control. But with Aspen Milagros Arroyo, it wasn’t blood he was curious about. It was the way her energy didn’t match anyone else’s in Forks. Her emotions shimmered with contradictions—calm and chaos, earth and lightning.
He could still feel her energy through the crowd at Miller’s field: sticky fingers, kids crying, laughter bursting like fireworks. But Aspen’s emotions cut through all of it—an audible ew ew ew reverberated in his mind as she tried to wipe chocolate off her hands after helping a pair of toddlers.
Jasper almost smiled. She wasn’t graceful, but she had heart. Her disgust felt so alive.
Still, he didn’t forget the rules. Carlisle’s quiet warnings. Sam Uley’s sudden interest. Jasper had spent enough time in battle to recognize a power play when he saw one. Was this “date” with Paul Lahote—a young man who laughed too loud and carried tension like a live wire—really a favor? Or was Sam testing them all?
He could feel Paul’s cocky bravado like a bonfire in his chest—smoke and pride. Aspen’s energy flickered beside it, restless, sparkling. She was supposed to be wary, maybe even scared, but instead, Jasper sensed… amusement? Defiance?
“Darlin’, what are you doing?” he muttered under his breath, his Southern drawl barely audible as he shifted his stance to watch.
At Miller’s Field, Aspen stood surrounded by chaos—Jacob, Embry, and Quil, all with that easy mischief of small-town teens who had too much time and not enough boundaries. They were daring each other to jump the creek, talking about someone’s cousin’s truck that got stuck in the mud. Paul was beside her, tossing an empty candy wrapper into the air like it was a football.
“C’mon, Arroyo,” Paul teased, his grin half-charming, half-trouble. “You can’t tell me you’re scared of a little mud.”
Aspen crossed her arms, still wiping her palms with a tissue she’d stolen from one of the moms. “I’m not scared,” she said. “I just know how bacteria works, genius. You ever hear of staph infections?”
Quil snorted. “Dang, Paul, your girlfriend’s already scolding you.”
Paul flushed. “She’s not my—”
Aspen raised a brow, cutting him off. “Finish that sentence and I’ll tell everyone you screamed when the spider dropped from that tree earlier.”
The boys burst out laughing. Even Paul cracked a grin, shaking his head. “Fine, fine. You win, Leeloo.”
Jasper, from the shadows, couldn’t help the faint curl of amusement tugging at his mouth. She was something—unpredictable, vibrant. A human who wasn’t terrified of monsters, even when monsters watched from the trees.
But what unnerved him wasn’t her humor. It was the way her necklace—the wolf medicine bag—hummed. Jasper could feel it from here. To him, it wasn’t just leather and beadwork. It was alive.
It pulsed like a heartbeat, ancient and deliberate. The kind of energy that pressed against his chest and said, You don’t belong here.
He’d felt charms before—protective symbols, talismans, prayers woven into fabric. But this… this was older. He could almost sense it rejecting him, like it remembered what his kind had done long before he ever existed.
And still, Aspen laughed, unaware of the quiet war between the supernatural and the spiritual happening just beneath her skin.
Jasper closed his eyes, focusing on her emotions—trying to read them like weather patterns. The necklace created static, interference. But when he reached past it, he found something deeper—a quiet sorrow, old as the earth.
He stepped back into the forest, his jaw tightening. Whatever Aspen was, she wasn’t just a girl on a fake date. And the energy in that necklace wasn’t just protection—it was remembrance.
As he turned away, the echo of Paul’s laughter reached him, followed by Aspen’s muttered, “You’re lucky I didn’t bring gloves, wolf-boy.”
Jasper’s eyes narrowed.
Wolf-boy.
He didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.
The Cullen house was silent when Jasper returned, but silence never meant peace in that house—it meant thought. It meant secrets.
He entered through the back door, the faint smell of wet pine still clinging to his jacket. His steps were deliberate, slow, careful—as though the floorboards might crumble under the weight of what he’d just felt in that field.
Alice was waiting by the window, legs crossed neatly on the sill, her golden eyes focused on the storm clouds that hadn’t yet broken. “You followed her again,” she said softly, not turning to face him.
Jasper didn’t deny it. “She was safe,” he murmured, his voice a gravelly hum. “But that thing she wears…” He trailed off, rubbing at his temple as though it might help quiet the memory.
Edward looked up from the piano bench, where his hands hovered over the keys but didn’t play. “The necklace,” he said. “The medicine bag. I could hear it in your thoughts—it unsettled you.”
Jasper took a seat across from them, his expression distant. “Unsettled ain’t the word. It stopped me.” He paused, pressing a palm over his chest as though expecting to feel a heartbeat that wasn’t there. “It made something in me ache. Like… my instincts didn’t know what to do. Like that little piece of leather remembered every monster that ever crawled outta the dark before I did.”
Alice frowned, finally turning to look at him. “You mean it hurt you?”
“Not hurt,” Jasper said slowly. “It just—reminded me I’m not supposed to be here. That humans once… knew what we were. Before stories got rewritten. Before they forgot how to fight us without fire and fear.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor. “What if they weren’t scared, back then? What if they were connected—to the land, to each other, to somethin’ purer than we’ll ever understand? Maybe that’s why they made those charms, or turned into wolves, or prayed to the dirt itself. Not because they feared us… but because they loved the world too much to let it die with us in it.”
Alice’s brow furrowed. “Jasper, you’re spiraling.”
He almost laughed, but it came out hollow. “Maybe I am. But when I stood near her, I could feel life—real life. All I could think was that I used to be part of that. The warmth, the pulse, the purpose. And now…” He touched his chest again, whispering, “Now I’m just the weapon they’d have made those charms against.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want to admit that something about Jasper’s words hit too close to home. He could still hear the faint echo of the energy Jasper described—a hum that had crawled across his own mind when Aspen passed near him days ago.
“She’s human,” Edward said finally. “That’s all she is.”
“Then why can’t you see her future, Edward?” Alice’s voice was gentle, but her eyes were sharp. “Why do my visions flicker when she’s near? You think that’s normal?”
Edward didn’t answer. He only looked away, focusing on the sound of Jasper’s breathing that wasn’t truly breathing—just the ghost of habit.
For a moment, none of them spoke. Jasper looked lost, fragile in a way vampires weren’t supposed to be. Alice reached over, brushing her fingers against his hand. “You’ve spent decades trying to feel human again,” she whispered. “Maybe Aspen just reminded you what it really meant.”
He gave her a tired smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Or maybe she reminded me why I never will.”
Meanwhile, Aspen was fuming.
It was one thing to have a date forced on her by Sam Uley like some undercover mission, but now everyone in Paul’s friend group—six loud boys with messy hair and even messier jokes—acted like she and Paul were a couple.
Luke, Paul’s closest friend, elbowed him with a grin. “Man, I didn’t think you had it in you. She’s way outta your league.”
Aspen, arms crossed, shot him a look that could melt steel. “We’re not dating.”
Paul tried to laugh it off, but his ears were pink. “Right, right. Just hanging out.”
“Exactly.” Aspen snapped a candy wrapper shut. “Sam asked me to keep an eye on you clowns. You’re welcome.”
Luke laughed. “Oh, she’s fiery. Lahote, better behave or she’ll dump you before you even date.”
Aspen groaned, glaring at the night sky. “I swear, Meyer, if you’re writing this like I’m just another teenage girl who can’t go five minutes without crushing on someone, I’m suing you from beyond the narrative.”
Paul blinked. “What?”
“Nothing.” She forced a grin. “Just talking to God or whoever’s ruining my reputation.”
The group broke into laughter again, the kind that carried over the October wind. Aspen hated how warm it made her feel. She hated how alive she felt among them—the teasing, the candy, the chaos.
Because somewhere, deep down, she could almost feel the eyes watching her from the forest. A pulse. A presence. A memory older than the monsters she didn’t even know were real.
Edward hated that he’d learned to move without sound—because tonight, he wanted someone to hear him coming. He wanted the world to notice how deeply unsettled he’d become.
He leaned against the far side of the Cullen house, where the voices of Jasper and Alice murmured low and warm in the library. They were talking about her again—Aspen Milagros Arroyo. The human girl who’d somehow managed to make his telepathy useless and his self-control questionable.
“…you’re worried about her,” Alice said softly. “But I don’t think she means us harm.”
“She doesn’t have to mean harm to cause it,” Jasper replied, voice like worn gravel. “That necklace—whatever it is—ain’t just a charm. It’s like holding a storm in a pouch.”
Edward’s jaw tightened. His reflection flickered faintly against the glass, pale and angular, like something carved to look human but failing at the last detail.
He didn’t understand it—why Aspen bothered him. He’d met hundreds of humans, been surrounded by them for decades, and none of them had ever made him feel this… conflicted.
He hated the way she dismissed the rules of his existence as if she could rewrite them with her notebook and her sarcasm. He hated that she didn’t flinch around him. He hated her ridiculous faith in her “spiritual protection,” as if some leather charm could outmatch the will of God or the venom in his own teeth.
And yet—
Every time he’d tried to reach into her mind, to know her, all he heard was SpongeBob SquarePants.
“Ravioli, ravioli, give me the formuoli—”
Over.
And over.
And over.
It was enough to make him want to dig his own marble fingers into his temples.
Edward closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose even though he didn’t need to breathe.
Maybe Alice was right—maybe he did have a nemesis in this strange mortal girl. A nemesis whose defense against his powers was pure, chaotic nonsense.
He thought of the necklace again—the way it shimmered faintly even when light didn’t touch it. How it seemed to hum like a tuning fork whenever he was near.
Maybe it’s calling to me, he thought bitterly. Or maybe it’s mocking me—reminding me of what I lost.
He felt something strange stir in his chest then—something that wasn’t hunger but its twin. The memory of being alive. The memory of a heartbeat he hadn’t had in a century.
Meanwhile, Aspen was leaning against Paul Lahote’s shoulder, the two of them perched on the edge of Miller’s field as Halloween lights blinked in the distance.
Paul was laughing softly, his voice a warm rumble. “You’re not like the other girls in Forks.”
Aspen snorted. “Is that your idea of flirting?”
He grinned. “Maybe. Is it working?”
“Barely,” she teased, though her heart fluttered in a way she hadn’t felt since she was sixteen the first time around.
The night had gone strangely well. For someone she’d pegged as an impulsive future-werewolf with anger issues, Paul was surprisingly decent—funny, grounded, even kind when he wasn’t trying to impress his friends. He’d respected her boundaries when she told him she couldn’t date until she was eighteen, even if she wasn’t entirely sure that rule still applied to her… whatever she was now.
The moon was high, washing the trees in silver, and Aspen realized for the first time that this world—this ridiculous, over-romanticized fictional world—felt almost alive.
Paul turned toward her, the playful energy fading into something gentler. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Aspen hesitated. The air felt heavier, her mind catching on the weight of a truth she couldn’t tell him. “Something like that,” she said.
He chuckled. “You’re weird.”
“I get that a lot.”
Paul’s hand brushed hers, tentative but warm. For a heartbeat, Aspen’s brain froze—caught between the instincts of a 26-year-old woman who knew better and the biology of a teenage body that didn’t.
If this were a normal story, she’d kiss him. If she were really sixteen again, maybe she would.
But she wasn’t.
She was a woman trapped in her own rewrite—fighting to keep her heart and hormones from falling into Stephanie Meyer’s neat little narrative box.
So instead, Aspen laced her fingers through Paul’s, gave his hand a squeeze, and said with a smile, “This’ll be enough for the plot.”
Paul blinked. “The what?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just… you’re good company, Paul Lahote. Even if the universe’s author has terrible taste in drama.”
He laughed again, shaking his head. “You’re so weird.”
“Yeah,” Aspen whispered to herself, watching the moonlight ripple over the grass. “But maybe weird is what keeps me real.”
Emmett leaned against the doorway of the Cullen living room, arms folded across his broad chest, and watched his brothers spiral in opposite emotional directions.
If vampires could sigh without making it sound dramatic, he would’ve.
Edward was pacing—no, brooding, Emmett corrected himself, because “pacing” implied he might eventually stop. Edward’s expression was a storm cloud that refused to rain, all tightly wound jaw and furrowed brow. His eyes had that tortured faraway gleam again, the kind he got when he started questioning the meaning of existence or—apparently now—when a mortal girl managed to outwit his telepathy with SpongeBob.
Across the room, Jasper was sitting with a notebook open, his handwriting slanted and deliberate. Emmett didn’t need to read it to know it wasn’t one of his old Civil War recollections this time. The pen scratched in fast bursts—battle maps, contingency ideas, maybe a strategic outline for befriending a teenage girl.
Emmett blinked. We’re doomed.
He glanced between the two of them, running a mental scoreboard.
Edward: glaring at the floor, muttering about hubris, theology, and “the noise of her mind.”
Jasper: writing an essay titled “Alliance with Aspen: Emotional Warfare and the Preservation of Humanity.”
“Y’know,” Emmett said finally, tone casual but amused, “for immortal men, you guys are acting a whole lot like middle schoolers with a crush.”
Edward froze mid-pace, turning his glower toward Emmett. “She is not—I am not—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Emmett interrupted with a grin. “You keep saying that, bro. But every time her name comes up, you go full Byronic meltdown. Jasper here looks like he’s drafting his own spin-off novella.”
“I’m not,” Jasper said without looking up. “It’s a letter.”
“Uh-huh. To who?”
Jasper hesitated. “…Aspen.”
Emmett couldn’t help the laugh that burst out. “Dude, she’s a teenager.”
Jasper looked up then, his gold eyes sharp but pained. “She’s also a survivor, Emmett. She’s strange, unpredictable—but she’s not blind. There’s something ancient in her blood, something that doesn’t belong to any of our known worlds. If the wolves sense it too, we need to be ready.”
Emmett raised an eyebrow. “So your plan is… what? Pen pals and prophecy?”
Edward groaned quietly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is absurd. She’s human. She’s a child. She’s—”
“The only person in Forks you can’t read,” Emmett cut in, still grinning.
“Sounds like you’re just mad she broke your radio signal, Eddie.”
Edward turned sharply away, muttering something about “insufferable chaos spirits.”
Emmett just chuckled. The whole house felt weirdly alive lately—like Aspen’s presence had stirred something dormant in all of them. She was chaotic, clumsy, sometimes muttering to herself about “authors” and “timelines,” but there was something funny about her too. She made the whole town feel like it wasn’t stuck on pause.
And hell, she actually looked him in the eye when she talked. Most humans didn’t. She even smirked at him sometimes—like she was testing if he’d laugh.
Pretty neat kid, he thought with a small smile. Trouble magnet, sure, but she’s got guts.
Meanwhile, down the dim streets of Forks, Aspen and Paul were walking home. The air smelled like pumpkin guts and wet leaves; porch lights flickered from rain-speckled windows.
Paul was mid-rant about his week at school—something about Coach Clapp assigning laps for no reason—when he suddenly stopped talking.
He squinted ahead, then pointed. “Uh… you seeing that?”
Aspen followed his gaze—and stopped cold.
Across the street, a family had gone all out for Halloween: fog machine, carved pumpkins, strings of orange lights. But what caught her eye were the decorations in the yard.
A beautiful white swan centerpiece.
And behind it, a cluster of fuzzy little ducklings.
Fake, plastic, but somehow… eerily familiar.
Aspen felt her heart drop into her stomach.
Paul glanced at her, eyebrows raised. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No, it’s just—” Aspen swallowed, trying to sound casual. “I think the universe is trying to mess with me again.”
Paul blinked. “...what?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, forcing a shaky laugh. “Just—uh, it’s fine. Just an inside joke. Between me and… fate, I guess.”
Paul frowned, studying her. “You’re weird, Arroyo.”
“Yeah,” Aspen muttered, staring at the fake swan as a porch light flickered above it. “You and Meyer both.”
Paul’s confusion deepened. “Who’s Meyer?”
Aspen winced. “Nobody. Just… a really stubborn storyteller.”
The swan’s glossy eyes seemed to glint under the streetlamp, almost watching her. And for the first time, Aspen wondered if this was the author’s way of forgiving her—for calling the meadow lame.
Or maybe it was a warning.
Fine, she thought bitterly. I get it. I’ll behave… for now.
Notes:
So, I know not much of the tribes or nations of indigenous folks around here, if I am truly speaking from the heart only a big family along with their friends that try to preserve their culture, land, and ways around where I live.
No, they don't "shove" down my throat, they just merely existed and as a child I waddled up to them and their stand with like 8 dollars trying buy off a custom knife that their elder crafted with a beautiful pouch for hunting!
I got yelled out by my mother lol then brought something!
I been attracted to knowledge all my life like ancient China, try teaching myself Korean like I was 3 or 5 with a book that was older than I was at the time, and etc.
I am not from these people even if I was, I will never know because I am broken off from these cultures, words, and communities for generations or loss of touch among families.
I am just mixed race I hear stories of where my blood come from, but I don't talk the talk, walk the walk, and I might never be apart among the communities my ancestors or bloodline was born from.
They conquer, killed, destroyed, and slaughter all they could even our history, I am among those that got left behind or forgotten that I was never among the ranks of the victors of history but tricked to believe I am just like them to be in glory of bloodlust, slaughter, and betraying my own kind to be accepted by said conquerors.
Let all stories be told not only the forgotten ones but the happy ones too!
Indigenous people are backbone of every nation if you think of it, but forced to only be bone, dust, and forgotten due to bruised egos of unfit mankind.
If unfit man has a nation and culture, it's jealousy, cruelty, and being that will kill to be right each step the way even when facing reality, they will say you are wrong, facts are lies, and I have a right for this killing too.
The unfit man doesn't believe the patriarchy exist, rather is their saving grave, that toxic masculinity only way to go and be, most all control, pain, and abuse only greatest they have to offer us all.
Anyway, fuck that sick shit bitches.
Bitches like Bozos the Ameazon company owner are scent watermelon favorite rock-hard shit covered golden flake biscuits everyone acts it's good but I know you hate eating shit, yet you lie to yourself that you actually like it or even enjoy it.
In fact, you like eatin' that shit, that's why some you voted for a man that hates us all most of all our freedom of choice, the fact we can love, and most all have free will.
Some of y'all worse that bootlickers, some you shit eaters, and act like eating real food is sin. Some of you want us to eat the shit from the rich to not starve ourselves when we ask for food or help... to that I say I rather die than be eating crumbles or shit of your favorite future body bag- oops I mean favorite rich person!
Today's lesson is Souly tried- around my town there is Charlie Kirk and Trump to White nationalist propaganda fund by bunch of Mexicans or American Mexicans of immigrant parents....
I am not longer a teen to be sneaking off setting shit on fire, stealing bullshit signs, or more my teen nonsense I used to do. I have fear now and a job lol.
Why be racist, hateful, and spiteful because daddy didn't love you ever when you can shut up? I don't know man, uh don't be a coward using a dead man to be supreme holy racist, fucking being of existence, and act super shock no likes you...like uh???
This supposed to be inspiring but it got lost a while ago. Are all republicans racist? I have no clue or idea but most of them stand against the lines those who are and I go that's cowards move.
Also, some of them bad a math, socializing, and understanding the government doesn't bend for you also the president will not kiss your ass just because you voted for them, know that right?
I am say something fucked up but both parties are fucking awful, truly dogshit, most all republicans think they saving themselves the people in name of God and I go God, I will I had no self-control over my God complex like do sometimes because than I would never be sad and blame everyone else for my shit takes and personal problems too.
Democrats just suck, they are racist where it's like they smile and gaslight you type of way! I am like I am stab some of you because you are imposter on this ship!
No parties- that's it- Souly said no more parties in the democracy, okay?
This rant is called I am tired as shit.
Chapter 4: I Can't Be Cruel as You...
Summary:
Witchy things and fucking chaos
Aspen is trying her best not get killed off or fucking get arrested.... you will see how...soon?!
Remember I don't know 100% of tribe's full cultures- please fund them and respect them!
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Jasper’s letter began in his unmistakably tidy, soldier-like handwriting—ink even, steady, yet carrying the faint tremor of restraint.
Dear Aspen,
I hope this letter finds you in one piece, though I suspect you wouldn’t let it be otherwise. You seem to have the sort of spirit that endures storms and then apologizes to the thunder for being too loud yourself.
It was an odd beginning—soft, sincere, almost painfully human. Jasper frowned at the page, fingers hovering as though ashamed of how unguarded that sounded. But he pressed on anyway.
I am not accustomed to writing to humans… not in friendship, not in any form that doesn’t carry a sense of distance. But I find myself curious about you. There’s something older in your presence—something your necklace echoes. It unsettles me. That is not a complaint. I’ve spent lifetimes being unsettled. Perhaps I’m only trying to understand what it means to feel human unease again.
You once said that the earth itself remembers. I didn’t believe you then. I think I might now.
He signed it simply —Jasper H. and tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat, unsure whether he’d ever give it to her or let it burn in the fireplace like all the other half-confessions he’d written across the centuries.
Meanwhile, the “Aspen Crisis,” as Emmett had dubbed it with far too much enthusiasm, reached its evening peak.
“Bro, you’re both acting like she’s Voldemort,” Emmett laughed, leaning against the railing. “Jasper’s writing letters like it’s the Civil War again, and Edward looks like he’s composing a breakup speech for the girl he’s not even dating!”
Edward glared darkly. “You don’t understand, Emmett. She—her mind—it’s chaos. I can’t hear half of it, and the half I can hear is nonsense.”
Emmett snorted. “Like what? Secret vampire-hunting plans?”
Edward gritted his teeth. “No. SpongeBob. A chant. ‘Ravioli ravioli give me the formuoli.’ On loop.”
The room went silent for a heartbeat before Emmett exploded in laughter so loud even Esme heard from downstairs. “She’s trolling you telepathically!” he gasped, wheezing. “Oh, I like her already.”
Esme appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips, soft voice trying to cut through the chaos. “Boys, please—enough about this poor girl. You’re frightening Jasper.”
Jasper didn’t look frightened—just quietly haunted, eyes fixed on the folded paper in his hand. “I’m fine, Esme,” he said, voice calm. “Just… thinking.”
“Thinking about your pen pal?” Emmett teased. “What are you gonna write next—‘Dear Aspen, you make my undead heart go thump-thump’?”
Jasper gave him a sharp look, though there was a faint twitch of humor at the corner of his mouth.
“Emmett,” Esme sighed, though a small smile softened her tone. “Be kind. Maybe friendship with a human isn’t so bad.”
“Exactly!” Emmett said triumphantly. “See, Ma gets it. You and Rose could use some normal girl talk too—take Aspen shopping or something instead of scaring off every human at the mall.”
Rosalie, passing by at that moment, raised a single perfect eyebrow. “If she survives your brothers’ drama, then I’ll consider it.”
Alice, perched quietly beside her sketchpad, didn’t look up. “We might have bigger things coming soon anyway,” she murmured. “There’s another girl. I keep seeing her in pieces—brown hair, shy, like a storm waiting to happen.”
Edward froze. “Another girl?”
Alice nodded faintly, eyes distant with a half-smile. “Yes. But that’s for later. For now, maybe Aspen’s the chaos we deserve.”
Meanwhile, down by the La Push beach, Aspen sat with Paul, jacket around her shoulders, the fire painting gold on her face. The wind smelled of salt and pine. Something old shifted in the forest—something watching, waiting—but for the moment, she ignored it.
She squeezed the two rubber ducks in her hands and laughed under her breath. “You know,” she said softly, “sometimes I think this world was written by someone who doesn’t like teenage girls very much.”
Paul tilted his head, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Aspen said, smiling too wide to be casual. “Just… maybe next time, I’ll write my own story.”
And in the trees beyond, Jasper’s faint sense of dread whispered through the night like the echo of an ancient heartbeat that should have never stopped.
The bonfire crackled against the October wind, throwing sparks that whirled and died like restless ghosts. Aspen’s laughter from earlier was fading, her focus tightening on Jacob Black—whose face was half-lit in orange glow, eyes wide with that stubborn, boyish glint of mischief.
“Jacob, please,” Aspen whispered, hands cupping his cheeks like she was scolding a kid brother. “Go home. It’s late. Your dad will kill me if he finds out you’re still out here.”
Jacob pouted, lips pressed together in the exaggerated way only a 15-year-old could manage. “No way. It’s Halloween! Quil and Embry don’t wanna go either!”
Quil, a little shorter and perpetually grinning, piped up. “Yeah! We were gonna see who could scare Luke first, but then someone—” he jabbed a thumb at Embry “—decided to roast all the marshmallows at once.”
Embry shrugged, already holding another half-burned stick. “They cook faster that way.”
Paul groaned from where he stood, hands in his pockets. “You’re all like puppies with sugar highs. Aspen, they’ll never sleep tonight.”
Jacob folded his arms and shot Paul a defiant glare. “Maybe I don’t wanna leave you two alone. What if you—” he scrunched his nose in mock disgust “—kiss or something?”
Aspen snorted, unable to help it. “Jacob, if we do, the world will implode from sheer awkwardness. You’d hear it all the way in Forks.”
The boys erupted in laughter, Quil practically falling over while Embry wheezed.
Aspen smiled softly—there was something so alive about them. Their laughter filled the cold, their youth brighter than any fire. Yet beneath it, the air shifted—an almost imperceptible weight pressing on her chest.
From the darkness of the forest, something stirred. Not an animal. Not human either. Aspen’s senses prickled, the hairs on her arms rising. She tried to glance past the trees without making it obvious. For just a moment, she swore she saw the faint shimmer of gold—like a pair of eyes reflecting firelight too high to belong to a wolf.
Paul noticed her stiffness. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said too quickly. “Just—thought I saw something.”
Paul frowned, scanning the tree line. “Probably just Sam checking on everyone.” But he didn’t sound convinced.
Aspen looked back toward Jacob, Quil, and Embry—still arguing about whether marshmallows counted as dinner. They were so young, so unaware of the monsters circling their futures. Aspen’s heart ached knowing what would happen to each of them.
Jacob finally kicked the sand. “Fine. We’ll go. But if Paul turns into a vampire or something, I’m telling Billy it’s your fault!”
Aspen ruffled his hair, trying not to let her worry show. “Deal. Now go, before I tell him you ate five candy bars before dinner.”
The boys scampered off toward the path, still laughing, their voices echoing like echoes of innocence down the beach road. Aspen turned back to the fire. Whatever was in the forest hadn’t moved. But it watched. She could feel it like a heartbeat behind her skull.
Back at the Cullen house, the fire was a softer kind—contained, glowing inside Esme’s hearth. Jasper’s desk was neatly arranged, the letter to Aspen folded and sealed beneath a paperweight. Or so he thought.
Alice found it first. She hadn’t meant to pry—but curiosity had a way of nudging open doors, and Jasper’s quiet mood had been eating at her all night. She hesitated only a moment before lifting the paper.
Her golden eyes darted across the words, and something complicated flickered through her expression. Amusement, warmth… and a sliver of jealousy she didn’t expect to feel.
“He actually wrote her a letter,” she murmured. “So old-fashioned.”
Edward, passing by, paused mid-step. “Who wrote who a letter?”
Alice smirked. “Jasper. To the human girl. Aspen.”
Edward’s jaw tensed instantly. “He what?”
She waved the page lightly. “Relax, it’s harmless. He’s trying to understand her. You know how he gets when he’s overthinking humanity again.”
Edward’s lip curled slightly—not quite disgust, not quite resentment. “It’s dangerous. You can’t befriend a human like her. She’s unpredictable. I can barely even hear her thoughts—just fragments, like static. It’s infuriating.”
“Or maybe,” Alice said lightly, folding the letter back up, “you’re mad because you can’t hear her. You like control, Edward.”
He glared, though his voice lowered. “She’s reckless. She believes charms and symbols can protect her from creatures like us. It’s… arrogant.”
Alice’s smile thinned. “Or maybe it’s faith. Not the same kind as yours—but still faith.”
Edward looked away, conflicted, shadows cutting across his face from the firelight. “She’s going to get herself killed.”
Alice tucked Jasper’s letter back under the paperweight, thoughtful. “Or maybe she’ll teach one of us something before she does.”
Neither noticed Jasper standing quietly in the hallway, gaze fixed on the letter’s resting place—expression unreadable, a faint ache stirring in his chest where his heart used to be.
The night at La Push Beach was alive in a way Aspen hadn’t felt in years—maybe lifetimes. The bonfire had grown massive, a roaring sun of orange and red licking up toward the stars. Sparks danced against the blackness, and around it, the older teens from the reservation celebrated freely.
Drums and laughter mingled with the crash of the waves. Some sang in Quileute, others whooped and cheered. The air carried the scent of smoked fish, sweet cider, roasted pumpkin, and ash. Aspen couldn’t tell where tradition ended and youthful chaos began, but it all pulsed together—alive, beautiful, human.
Paul had slung his arm lazily over her shoulders, his laughter deep and rich in her ear as his friends playfully argued about who could hold their drink the best. Every now and then, he’d glance at her, almost shyly, as if unsure how close was too close.
She didn’t mind. It was warm here—comforting. And she could see Sam and Leah sitting apart but together, Leah’s head resting against Sam’s shoulder, both of them lost in their own small, peaceful universe. For a brief, fragile heartbeat, Aspen allowed herself to feel safe among them.
But then—
The peace broke.
From beyond the treeline came a guttural, inhuman yell that twisted into a long, mournful howl. It silenced everything. The drums stopped mid-beat. Laughter died on every lip.
Aspen froze, her heart pounding in her ribs. Paul’s hand tightened protectively on her shoulder as Sam shot up instantly, eyes darting toward the forest.
“That’s not one of ours,” Sam said under his breath, his voice sharp, guttural.
Leah was already pulling him back, but Sam shook his head, gaze locked on the dark forest. Every instinct in Aspen screamed that whatever was in there wasn’t right.
Paul glanced at her—half concern, half something else. “Stay here,” he muttered, already moving toward Sam.
Aspen wanted to protest, but the wind shifted—carrying with it the scent of something wrong. Iron, cold, and ancient. It wasn’t vampire. It wasn’t wolf. It was something that made the world itself seem to recoil.
The watcher in the woods had finally moved.
Back at the Cullen house
Jasper’s footsteps were soundless as he entered the room where Alice and Edward sat. The flickering light from Esme’s hearth had dimmed, but tension burned hotter than fire.
“You read it,” Jasper said quietly, his accent heavier, colder.
Alice sighed softly, guilty but unrepentant. “We did. We were worried, Jasper. You’ve been distant—”
“You don’t read someone’s words when they’re not yours to read,” Jasper interrupted, his tone as sharp as the edge of a blade.
Edward met his gaze evenly. “We were protecting you. You’re getting too close to that girl. She isn’t—normal.”
Jasper’s jaw flexed. “You think I don’t know that? You think I can’t feel what she is?”
Alice stood, trying to reach for him, but Jasper stepped back, shaking his head. “You felt it too, didn’t you, Edward? The way her presence hums in the air. That necklace of hers—it doesn’t just protect her. It remembers. There’s something older than any of us stitched into it.”
Edward frowned. “You’re spiraling. You’re letting emotion get in the way.”
Jasper’s golden eyes flared. “Maybe emotion’s what you need to feel for once, brother.”
The words hung heavy in the silence that followed. Alice’s gaze softened, trying to anchor him back. “Jasper, please—”
But he didn’t hear her anymore.
His head tilted slightly, senses sharpening. The air shifted. Somewhere distant—so faint a human wouldn’t notice—came the echo of a howl. Not wolf. Not vampire. Something ancient.
Jasper’s pupils narrowed. “That’s not Sam,” he whispered, voice cracking just slightly.
And before either of them could move, he was gone—out the window in a blur of gold and shadow, the glass trembling in his wake.
Alice and Edward exchanged a glance. The fire flickered, and Esme’s faint voice from downstairs called their names, worried.
But Edward’s focus was elsewhere—on that distant, unfamiliar echo rolling through the woods.
The kind of sound that didn’t belong to this century.
The bonfire crackled and snapped, its orange heart flickering like it was afraid too.
Sam’s sharp voice cut through the confusion: “Alright, that’s it—everyone pack it up! Home, now!”
His command carried the weight of something unspoken, something ancient in his tone that made even the most rebellious teens obey. Leah and a few older kids moved fast, stamping out smaller fires, gathering blankets, half-empty bottles, and dropped candy bags. The laughter that once rolled through the beach now came out nervous and thin—like ghosts trying to pretend they were still alive.
Paul grabbed Aspen’s wrist, guiding her through the chaos as Sam’s voice barked over the wind. “Don’t run—just move fast. Stick together!”
Aspen could barely hear him over the pounding of her own heart. Her throat was tight; she wanted to scream but all that came out was a broken, breathless laugh.
A high, trembling giggle that made Paul look down at her in confusion.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, frowning.
“Nothing,” she said, voice too light. “Just—nothing.”
She was laughing because she was terrified.
Laughing because if she stopped, she might start crying, and she couldn’t do that—not in front of him. Not in front of anyone.
Sam’s gaze caught hers across the crowd. For one still second, she swore he saw her—the panic she was trying to bury, the way her hands were shaking despite her smile. His jaw clenched. He motioned for Paul to keep her close, and Paul obeyed, tugging her further toward the path leading up to the cars.
The howl echoed again. Lower this time. Closer.
Aspen’s breath caught as the air changed—thick, metallic, electric.
It’s not a wolf, she thought. And it’s not a vampire.
Whatever it was, it was old.
Deep within the forest, Jasper ran.
His footsteps were silent over the wet leaves, the cold wind biting against his skin. The scent was strange—earth and smoke and something that burned his senses in a way no human or creature ever had.
It wasn’t blood.
It wasn’t venom.
It was… memory.
When he reached the edge of the cliffs, he stopped. The forest below was alive with movement, shadows twisting like ink in water. And then, slowly, the darkness gathered into a shape.
A man stepped out from between the trees.
He was tall, though not impossibly so—his shoulders draped in what looked like an old woven cloak of black and indigo feathers that caught even the smallest flicker of moonlight. His skin was warm-toned, bronze-gold beneath the shadow. His long hair, dark as obsidian, had streaks of silver through it—not with age, but something older. His eyes were what stopped Jasper cold: one deep brown, the other almost violet, reflecting the flames of the bonfire miles away.
When he spoke, it was like the trees leaned in to listen.
“You’ve been far from your kind too long, Jasper Whitlock.”
Jasper didn’t move, every instinct screaming both fight and flee. “You know my name.”
“I know more than your name.” The stranger tilted his head, studying him with mild amusement. “I know the reason your heart still aches when it shouldn’t. I know why your thirst feels heavier here than it should.”
Jasper narrowed his eyes. “What are you?”
The man smiled slightly, the kind of smile that had seen too many centuries. “Some call me Raven. Some, Bayaq. I am the echo between stories. The breath between lies and life.”
Jasper’s throat tightened. “You’re not real.”
“Neither are you,” Bayaq replied gently. “Not here.”
The air fell still.
Bayaq’s cloak shifted, feathers shimmering like the night sky itself.
“You chase monsters, Jasper, but you forget—they were born from men who feared the dark. Aspen remembers that. She remembers everything you forgot.”
Jasper took a step forward, muscles coiled. “You’re here because of her.”
A slow nod. “She called me—unintentionally, of course. She doesn’t belong here, and I followed to make sure she doesn’t forget who she is. But this world is stubborn, and its author even more so.”
Bayaq’s gaze drifted toward the distant glow of the beach. “Something in this story wants to consume her. Rewrite her into its image. I’m here to remind it—she is not a character. She is a storm.”
Jasper felt that ache again in his chest. The ache of memory. Of heartbeat. Of humanity.
“And you?” Bayaq asked softly, turning back to him. “Are you her ally or her jailer, soldier?”
Before Jasper could answer, the wind picked up—feathers scattering like sparks—and Bayaq was gone.
Only the faint echo of his laughter remained, a sound like ravens in flight.
Back at the beach, Aspen looked up from Paul’s borrowed jacket, feeling a cold ripple down her spine.
The forest had gone utterly silent.
The night itself felt like it was holding its breath.
She whispered under her breath, so quiet only the wind could hear,
“You followed me here, didn’t you?”
And far beyond the firelight, something unseen answered with the faint rustle of wings.
The Cullen house—immaculate, quiet, and cold—was lit only by the soft lamplight of Esme’s sitting room when Jasper burst through the door, his usual calm broken by something primal and uneasy. The scent of cedar smoke still clung to him from the reservation, and his voice came out rougher than usual as he called,
“Family meeting. Now.”
Edward was the first to appear, expression sharpened by suspicion. “You found something, didn’t you?”
Jasper just nodded, hands trembling faintly. “I… met someone. Or—something. He called himself…” He struggled with the word, drawl thickening under strain. “Bay-ack? Bah-yawk? Somethin’ like that.”
Carlisle’s brows furrowed. “Bayaq,” he corrected gently after Jasper repeated the sound again, searching. “That’s Quileute, isn’t it?”
“I reckon so,” Jasper said. “But this ain’t no spirit story. This was a man. Flesh and blood—or he seemed it. Only thing was, the forest went quiet soon as he spoke. Like the earth itself was holdin’ its breath.”
Edward’s jaw tightened, arms crossed. “You’re letting old campfire tales get to you. A shapeshifter from the legends suddenly showing up because of you? Come on, Jasper.”
But Alice, pale eyes glittering with an unreadable emotion, took Jasper’s hand. “He’s telling the truth,” she said softly. “I can’t see him, Edward. Whoever that man is—he’s outside my sight.”
A strange hush fell over them. Esme clasped her hands together, whispering, “Then he’s not human.”
Carlisle only nodded once, calm but grim. “Then we research. If this… Bayaq exists beyond myth, we’ll need to know why he’s here—and what he wants.”
Jasper leaned back, uneasy. “He said he was watchin’. Like he’d been watchin’ me. Like he knew who I was before I even opened my mouth.”
In the depths of the forest, Bayaq—tall, dark-haired, with features carved like river rock and eyes blacker than a raven’s wing—stood beneath the canopy. His skin held the sheen of wet bark; his clothing, though simple, shimmered faintly as though feathers lay just beneath the fabric. He was ageless, ancient, and dissatisfied.
He clicked his tongue in quiet disapproval, the sound echoing faintly like the beat of distant wings. “This world…” he murmured, voice low and melodic, “is painted by hands that do not know the shape of truth. The people of the coast, their stories stripped, their names borrowed. Turned to backdrop.” He let his gaze travel toward La Push, toward the dim lights and laughter fading after the bonfire’s end. “And yet, here they are—still breathing, still defying the page.”
The wind rustled through the trees, and he smiled—sharp, wistful, knowing. “Even the tricksters get rewritten, it seems.”
Aspen sat in the passenger seat of Paul’s truck, her hands tight around her coat sleeves as they sped through the night. Her laughter from earlier had long since died; now the only sound was the truck’s tires against gravel. Paul kept glancing at her, jaw tight, protective instinct humming in his veins.
“You, okay?” he asked.
She nodded too quickly. “Yeah. Just… shaken. The forest went dead quiet after that howl.” Her voice trembled. “It wasn’t Sam, was it? I mean- not a wolf, right?!”
Paul didn’t answer. His grip on the wheel told her enough.
Aspen stared out the window, watching the trees blur into shadow.
Something deep in her chest—older than fear—was stirring. That silence, that impossible stillness, felt like an awareness pressing against her ribs. It wasn’t just the woods watching. It was something inside the story itself.
She whispered, mostly to herself, “Maybe it’s not evil. Maybe it’s another test.”
Paul glanced at her, puzzled. “A test?”
Aspen met his gaze with a half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “From the author.”
The trees swayed like they were listening. Somewhere far behind them, a single raven called once—and the night fell utterly silent again.
Aspen lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, heart still echoing the sound of the ocean and Paul’s voice. The rubber ducks from that strange house sat on her nightstand, mocking her with their glassy smiles. She wasn’t tired—she couldn’t be tired. Her mind was alive with the sound that had split the forest open earlier that night.
It hadn’t been a wolf.
It hadn’t been human either.
She knew because she’d felt it inside her chest, like a tuning fork vibrating against the core of her being. Whatever had howled had recognized her—and that was worse than anything.
By midnight, she’d given up on sleep entirely. But when she blinked… the world shifted.
She was standing in a clearing.
The forest around her breathed in reverse—leaves whispering backward, shadows dripping upward into the canopy. The stars were the wrong color: molten red, like eyes opening all at once.
And then he appeared.
Bayaq.
His shape came together the way stories do: piece by piece, echo by echo. His coat shimmered like black feathers woven into skin, and his eyes—deep, knowing, too human to be human—glowed with a mirthless curiosity.
“You brought prayers into a story that doesn’t remember what faith feels like,” he said softly, voice rolling like thunder through water. “Interesting.”
Aspen stumbled back, hands trembling. “You—you’re not real.”
He tilted his head, amused. “Neither are you.”
Her breath caught. “Get away from me.”
He stepped closer. The forest bent to him, trees leaning in, light dissolving. “I only wanted to speak. You were sent here for balance, little inkling of a soul. Yet you pretend you don’t know why.”
That was when Aspen’s fear overwhelmed her—then reflex took over.
She clasped her hands, tears springing to her eyes. “God, please protect me.”
Bayaq blinked.
“In Jesus Christ’s name, protect me!”
The forest shuddered. His feathers bristled slightly.
Then Aspen’s voice grew louder, wild, trembling, unstoppable:
“Saint Michael, Archangel—defend me in battle! Virgin Mary, shield me! Joan of Arc, guide me! Santa Muerte, bless me with safety!”
At this, Bayaq’s expression changed—bafflement melting into wary awe.
“Hekate, goddess of crossroads, guard this path! Medusa, turn my fears to stone! Aphrodite, cloak me in love’s protection! Persephone, walk with me through this darkness! Hermes, carry my prayers fast! Ares—if you ever loved a mortal heart—fight for me now!”
Her voice shook the air.
Bayaq took a single step back. The forest’s heartbeat paused. For a moment, the trickster of the Quileute—who had seen centuries of men become gods and gods become dust—looked utterly confused.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, incredulous. “You prayed to all of them?”
Aspen nodded shakily, still crying. “I didn’t know who would listen.”
Bayaq blinked again, then chuckled softly, rubbing his temple. “You humans… always trying to cover every pantheon, hm? That is new.” He crouched slightly, his eyes softer now. “Calm, Aspen. I am not here to harm you. I am here to understand you. Perhaps… to remind you why you came.”
“I didn’t come here!” she shouted. “I was dragged here! I don’t even know how!”
He smiled, though it wasn’t cruel—only ancient, knowing. “No one writes themselves into another’s myth without reason. Perhaps you were meant to correct what was lost. Or perhaps you were meant to witness what happens when stories forget who they belong to.”
Her pulse slowed. The wind stirred, whispering in a dozen voices—each one hers.
“Correction?” she whispered. “You think I’m supposed to fix something?”
Bayaq leaned forward, the gleam of his eyes like obsidian wet with rain.
“Maybe not fix,” he said, “but remember. Remember what was erased, and why the monsters you fear were once protectors. Remember, before this story devours itself.”
Then his shape began to unravel, feathers turning to smoke. “You pray to gods, Aspen. I answer as one does who knows their silence.”
And with that, she woke up—tears still on her face, breath uneven. Outside her window, a raven sat on the sill, tapping once with its beak before flying into the night.
At the Cullen house — early morning
Jasper’s words filled the room like gunpowder waiting for a spark. “I saw him with my own eyes,” he said. “That howl last night? It wasn’t one of theirs. This—this thing knew me. Knew what I was.”
Edward shook his head sharply. “You’re assuming a myth is walking around Forks because of a noise in the woods?”
“It wasn’t just a noise,” Jasper snapped. “It had intent.”
Carlisle’s gaze swept the room, calm but decisive. “Then we’ll treat this seriously. If there is something—someone—outside the natural order moving in this territory, we have a duty to warn the wolves.”
Rosalie crossed her arms. “You mean the ones who can barely stand us? The treaty barely holds as is.”
“Yes,” Carlisle said. “And that’s why we go to Sam first. If he is the first of their kind, he has the right to know—and to decide how his people should prepare. It would show we respect them, not as rivals, but as partners.”
Esme nodded, supportive but worried. “It’s dangerous, Carlisle. If Edward’s right, they’ll see it as interference.”
Alice, still pale from reading Jasper’s memory, said softly, “But if Jasper is right… it’s already too late for neutrality.”
Carlisle took a deep breath, eyes grave. “Then we vote.”
Hands lifted—first Esme, then Alice, then Jasper.
Rosalie sighed and raised hers reluctantly. “Fine. But if this goes wrong, I’m blaming Jasper.”
Edward hesitated, eyes flickering toward the window, as if sensing something distant. Finally, he exhaled. “If Sam’s their leader, he deserves to know. But this isn’t a treaty visit—it’s a warning.”
Carlisle nodded. “Then it’s decided. We go at dusk.”
The dusk light fell over Forks like violet smoke—muted, strange, and still. Aspen sat on the edge of her bed, her tear-streaked cheeks glowing faintly in the fading orange outside her window. She hadn’t slept. She couldn’t.
Her dream clung to her like cobwebs—Bayaq’s eyes, the forest turning itself inside out, his voice that sounded like wind speaking through bone. And worse, the feeling that every time she blinked, she might still be in his world instead of this one.
But when she finally found the strength to move—to prove she was awake—her heart dropped.
Right there, on her window ledge, was a single black feather.
Its edges shimmered faintly under the dying light, as though wet with oil or ink.
And just beyond it, drawn faintly in ash or soot, were symbols.
Spiraling, ancient shapes—not letters, not any language she’d learned in her old world. Her breath caught in her throat, her fingers trembling as she traced one.
It hummed under her touch.
Then came the voice.
Not from outside.
Not even from the air.
It came from everywhere.
“Aspen Milagros Arroyo.”
The voice rippled through her mind like laughter breaking glass—sharp, amused, too close.
“Still afraid? Still praying to gods who forgot you first?”
Aspen froze, clutching her cross necklace. “Stop it,” she whispered.
“Stop—”
“Meyer fears me more than she’ll ever admit,” the voice said softly, almost with delight. “And you? You think she controls this world? Oh, little spark, she only borrowed it. It was mine long before she was born.”
Her breath hitched. “What do you want from me?”
There was a pause. She could almost feel him smile.
“To keep you alive.”
The words were simple—but the tone was not.
It wasn’t kindness. It was necessity.
“The others in this tale were never meant to see beyond their lines,” he went on. “But you… you are not written. You are correction. Balance. I cannot exist here without a witness who remembers what this story forgot.”
Aspen’s knees nearly gave out. She pressed a hand to her chest, whispering in disbelief. “You’re the reason I’m here?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Because you remember the crows.”
Her blood went cold. He laughed—soft, cruel, knowing.
“Never anger a raven, right?”
The sound dissolved into the faint caw of a bird outside her window, and then—silence. Just the black feather gleaming like a secret she was never meant to know.
Meanwhile… at the border of the treaty lands
A figure moved through the forest—a blur of controlled strength and old caution. Sam Uley, in wolf form, patrolled his territory as he had every evening, his instincts on edge after the strange howl last night. He could smell smoke, pine, saltwater, and—something else.
The Cullens.
He saw them before they could speak: Carlisle standing calm, hands visible; Esme beside him like a quiet presence of peace; Jasper tense, scanning the woods; Edward unreadable, his expression tight.
Sam’s hackles raised immediately, but he didn’t attack. He waited.
Carlisle lifted his hand. “We’re not here to break the treaty. We came to warn you.”
The wolf’s black eyes narrowed.
Jasper stepped forward, his Southern drawl low but steady.
“Something’s moving in these woods. Not human, not vampire. I think you already felt it.”
Sam tilted his head, silent but listening.
Edward added grimly, “It called itself Bayaq—or something like it.”
The name made Sam’s body go rigid. His ears flattened back, and a low growl rolled through his chest—not of anger, but recognition.
Carlisle noticed immediately. “You’ve heard it before?”
Sam’s gaze flickered between them, torn between suspicion and dread.
Finally, he gave a slow nod before turning sharply, muscles tensing.
Carlisle continued, “We think it might be connected to the girl—Aspen Arroyo. She’s… different. This presence seems to follow her.”
Edward shot Jasper a sharp look for revealing her name, but Jasper ignored it. “If you value your people’s safety,” he said, “tell your elders. That name—Bayaq—means something old, doesn’t it?”
Sam backed up, his huge paws crushing leaves, before throwing his head back.
The howl that ripped from him was deeper than anything Jasper had felt before. It wasn’t just a warning—it was a summons.
The sound carried over the trees, echoing through the reservation, shaking the crows from the powerlines.
Jasper’s stomach twisted as he listened. “He’s calling the elders,” he murmured. “He knows what this means.”
Carlisle exhaled quietly, eyes somber. “Then we’ve done what we came to do. Now we wait for their answer.”
In La Push, the elders stirred from their homes. The oldest among them looked to the forest and whispered the name like a curse.
“Bayaq,” said one. “The Raven returns to test the balance again.”
And far from them, in her dark room lit by moonlight, Aspen stared at the feather on her windowsill and whispered to no one,
“Then what am I being tested for?”
Around dusk, the ashen light poured over Forks like the last breath of day—muted, fragile, and almost sorrowful. Aspen stood by her window, her fingers trembling as she brushed tears from her cheeks. The remnants of her dream clung to her like frost—whispered echoes, flashes of black wings, and laughter that didn’t belong to anyone mortal. When she turned toward the glass, she froze.
A black feather lay on her windowsill. Perfect. Whole. And cold as obsidian. Around it, faint symbols were drawn into the condensation—circular marks with edges sharp enough to sting the eyes if stared at too long. Then came the voice—low, resonant, and taunting.
“Aspen…”
It was a voice that mocked and comforted in the same breath, one that made Meyer’s manipulative authorial wrath feel almost laughable. Meyer could threaten her existence, twist her into the plotlines she never chose—but this voice moved through her, ancient and electric.
Aspen’s pulse stuttered. Meyer’s irritation crackled like static in the air—“Get rid of it,” Meyer hissed from the unseen place above, tone sharp enough to cut.
Aspen stared at the feather, then at the ceiling as if she could see through it. “No.” Her voice broke, but her will didn’t. Instead of crushing it, she tucked the feather beneath her pillow.
It wasn’t wise to trust tricksters—her witchy instincts warned her of that—but she also knew something Meyer would never understand: witches who work with chaos rarely perish from it. Her mentors from the real world taught her that trickster deities like Loki, Coyote, and even the Morrígan were dangerous but fair. They never harmed those who listened.
When the air shimmered and burned with the scent of smoke, Aspen realized Meyer was trying to erase it—the feather darkened, curling in flame. Aspen shielded it, whispering, “You can’t take this from me.” The whisper of wings replied:
“Wolves don’t run with ravens for a reason… but even the moon bends when the sun refuses to rise.”
Then silence.
At the Quileute border, the night trembled with energy. Sam, in his wolf form, moved through the fog-dampened trees, every muscle humming with vigilance. He was the only wolf now, his pack long disbanded—or not yet called. He had grown used to the solitude, the burden of protecting his people alone.
That was until he smelled them. The Cullens.
They stood near the treaty line, pale as fog ghosts. Carlisle raised his hand in peace, but his eyes were urgent.
“Sam,” he began, “something… older than us is stirring. It’s watching Forks—and it’s tied to the girl, Aspen.”
Sam’s fur bristled. The name sent a strange recognition through him—something his grandmother once said about “the one who arrives when the raven cries.”
Edward added, “It’s not human. Not vampire. Something ancient.”
Sam growled, half in warning, half in fear. The air carried the scent of the forest’s unease. Then he threw back his head and howled—a long, echoing cry that rippled through the night, summoning the attention of spirits and ancestors alike.
He ran—his paws striking wet earth until he reached the village. The elders were already awake, waiting, firelight reflecting in their tired eyes. Billy Black’s expression was grave.
“Bayaq,” he said, voice trembling slightly. “The black-winged messenger. My father spoke of it. A spirit between worlds… protector and destroyer both.”
Sam, still half-wild, paced near the flames. “The Cullens said it’s tied to the girl. Aspen.”
Billy nodded slowly. “The girl who drowned and lived,” he murmured. “She came from the waters, didn’t she? That day the tide pulled back for no reason? Our ancestors say Bayaq only delivers what’s owed. Maybe she wasn’t sent here by chance… maybe the world itself pulled her through.”
Another elder, Auntie Marie, traced symbols into the dirt. “If the raven follows her, then she’s under its mark. The wolves cannot touch her—not with teeth, not with anger.”
Sam looked at the fire. “Then why am I the only one left to face it?”
The old woman gave him a look full of sorrow. “Because your spirit howled first.”
Morning.
Aspen didn’t sleep. The feather—or what was left of it—was a charred smear hidden inside her journal. When she stepped outside, three ravens perched along the power lines, their eyes reflecting something more human than she liked.
At school, whispers followed her like static. The “bear attack” scars on her arms were now vivid, raised against her pale skin. She hadn’t realized how visible they’d become beneath the loose sweater. Her reflection looked haunted, older somehow.
She walked across the parking lot, muttering prayers—half-pagan, half-Christian—under her breath, asking for protection, for guidance, for something to make sense.
Edward was waiting by the entrance, his golden eyes narrowing as he caught the whispered name:
“Morrígan…”
His head tilted slightly. “You’re praying again,” he said softly, though his tone carried a warning.
Aspen met his gaze, trembling but defiant. “You ever pray to something that might not listen?”
Edward’s expression darkened, unreadable. “Only to things that shouldn’t exist.”
The ravens croaked above them, circling once before disappearing into the fog.
And somewhere, far beyond their sight, a voice like wings against glass murmured, amused—
“You’re learning, little witch.”
Notes:
I don't like how Meyer did to the tribe, can I just say that out loud?
Also, why them imprint or mate off to babies so much?! Hmmm? Is because what Mormons did to many tribes through history and justify their actions in the name of God, or what?
Like they go these people are so- haha- mine......then generations past by now they are like (puts hair by an ear) these people- kinda hot- why these people kinda hot? But they aren't "real" people but beings for my pleasure and really bad people now make them mate with babies?!
This rant is called I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS MEYER!
MEYER! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU! WHY NOT GET CO-WRITE FROM THE TRIBE OR IN FACT NOT MAKE GROWN MEN GET WITH BABIES AHAHAHAHH
anyway, not that deep- bullshit- this is too much for me to handle.... someone tell me why she did that shit? Too many layers, deepest thing I got to say is WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?!
We all know there could been better off endings for all of them is all I am saying!
Baby imprint? No- young man must imprint on baby for me not be more creative and kinder.
RAge?!
I wannnnna know why?
You okay, girl? STeph- why your publishers go hell yeah, this shit so good- yessss all men be predators especially the brown skin ones! (This not true but you know what I meant)
ahahdhfiherfoh
Souly is mentally not sane when I think of this series especially when I think of Jacob Black bro, I start eating dirt I am digging up, trying to taste blood in my teeth, and shaking like I am going fight someone!
Aye yo- A FUCKING BABY- YEET THAT BABY AND THAT ENDING OFF THE CLIFFS I SAY
Souly is fucking barking
Don't get me started on the Leah and Emily bullshit! NO HEALTHY FEMALE RELATIONSHIPS UNLESS IT'S ALICE GROOMING BELLA INTO BEING HER SISTER AHAH
sucks to suck bro
I rather die than be like only relationship I can have is with man and to be my husband only!
I love my female relationships even my coworkers lol
I am sorry I forgot for a second twilight series can't be rewritten and in fact these people can't be hurt anymore...hopefully, Meyer write horror books stay away from romance no offense, but all my homies and coworkers say your horror shit is like 100% better.
Let yeah make this baby hot too- big ol putty pouty vampislic lips and adult hair yuh- gross Meyer!
EWWWW
Haha I am sorry for spiraling I just had hard night.
I feel sorry for Bella; she could've been rad art major or even like professor of literature....
More dates in general
What if Bella doesn't just GET scrape of affection and mostly trauma too.
TAKE BELLA ON DATES AND LET HER EAT FOOD EDWARD
YOU ARE MAKING BELLA ANEMIC YOU DUMB BITCH!!! Bella HARDLY EATS- HOW SHE CARRIES BABY WHEN BARELY TOOK CARE OF HERSELF, BARELY ATE, AND WAS ALWAYS FUCKING STRESSED-OUT STEPH?!
ILLOGICAL AHAHAH BELLA JUST MAGICALLY KNOWS SHE WITH CHILD TOO- SHE DIDN'T ALMOST PASS HER SCHOOL YEARS DUE TO EDWARD'S BULLSHIT TOO!
CHILD HAVING A CHILD AHAHAHFF
Poor Bella and others in the series- fuck you edward- fight me eddie.
Everyone is like Bella so wise and smart; I am all here like haha you sure? She a teen girl to young adult that thought reading classic literature in high school made her better than rest the whole school. Like girl- please you could have more growth, glow inner from deeps of your soul realizes that bit classist, and there is more than just being well read!
God, rest peace to all teens that thought they were Bella to slowly realized they didn't want to Bella anymore.
Anyway, Bella gonna get hobbies up in this bitch- like real hobbies- probably even odd ones.... I am trying make ones that fit her character.
*Gives Bella a cross* Go kill Edward for me, okay?
Chapter 5: I want to go home, now!
Chapter Text
The chill that morning was bone-deep—dew still clung to the grass, fog curling around Forks High like a ghost’s breath. Aspen stood just beneath the awning of the school entrance, still trembling from lack of sleep, from the feeling that someone—or something—had followed her all night.
Edward, tall and composed in his marble arrogance, studied her with the same polite distance one might give a curious insect. “You’re praying again,” he’d said.
Something inside Aspen snapped.
She stepped closer, eyes bright with fury and exhaustion. “You heretic,” she spat, voice cutting through the damp air.
“You sinner of generations—moron of family value!” Her hands trembled at her sides, her words like a curse made flesh. “You dare mock my beliefs, pity me for those I pray to, and not offer help when I am clearly struggling?! You claim to protect, yet you sneer at faith?”
Edward blinked, caught off guard in a way he hadn’t been for decades.
The faintest flicker of shame—or was it confusion?—crossed his features.
Aspen didn’t wait to see if it stayed.
She turned sharply, storming away toward the parking lot where Mike Newton was climbing out of his car, bag half-zipped and smile uncertain.
Mike startled when he saw her approach, mascara smudged, eyes wet with more than just morning fog. “Whoa, Aspen—hey, you, okay?”
She forced a shaky laugh. “You’re the only person in this godforsaken town who asks that.”
Mike’s grin softened into concern. “Well… yeah. Guess I care too much.”
“Guess I need that right now.”
And she walked beside him, head down, as Edward’s gaze lingered from across the lot.
Edward’s reaction was quiet—too quiet.
His hands clenched into fists he didn’t realize were trembling. He could still hear her voice echoing in his mind, layered with something that wasn’t entirely her own—something old, something almost divine.
“A heretic,” he murmured under his breath. “She called me a heretic…”
Behind him, Emmett burst out laughing so hard it startled a crow off the roof.
“Damn, Eddie! First human girl who doesn’t swoon over you, and she hits you with a ‘sinner of generations’?!” Emmett wheezed. “I like her already.”
Rosalie crossed her arms, though the faintest smirk played on her lips.
“She has a point. You do talk like you know everything.”
Alice tilted her head, eyes flickering. “But her aura… it’s strange. Like she’s been through two lifetimes at once.”
Edward didn’t reply. His thoughts were elsewhere—back to that moment, her eyes blazing with something he couldn’t read. Mortal anger carrying divine weight.
First period: Gym.
Aspen trudged into the locker room, the scent of old rubber and bleach making her stomach twist. She stared at the folded gym uniform like it was a curse. Gym class? That wasn’t something she ever remembered from her real life—not here, not in the version of high school she’d lived before waking in Meyer’s fiction.
As she laced up her shoes, flashes began to bleed through her vision.
A candlelit altar.
A raven perched beside her childhood window.
The reflection of her own face—not in a mirror, but on the surface of still water, whispering: Don’t drown again.
Her head throbbed. She blinked—and suddenly she was on the court, basketballs bouncing around her, Coach Colunga shouting names she didn’t recognize.
The world tilted. For a heartbeat, the walls melted into fog, and she saw another classroom—her real one, her bedroom—where her dog, Eros, slept by her feet as she studied. She could hear his sniffing, the soft pant of his breath, the jingle of his collar tags.
Then came a sound sharp and real—the croak of a raven outside the gym window.
Aspen flinched. The vision shattered.
Everything was too bright. The gym floor gleamed like wet glass. She could feel her pulse behind her eyes, and suddenly, tears—unwanted, unstoppable—welled up.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” she whispered. “This isn’t my world…”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Someone—Jessica, maybe—turned to look, confused. “Aspen? You good?”
But Aspen had already crumpled onto the bleachers, clutching her necklace, the last thing she’d brought from home.
She sobbed quietly, shoulders shaking—not just from fear, but homesickness. She missed Eros, his warmth, his unconditional love. She missed her own world, where Meyer wasn’t rewriting her every breath.
Then, through the blur of tears, she saw it. A black feather lying on the gym floor near her sneaker.
And a whisper—gentle, almost kind this time—brushed her ear:
Now you understand why I brought you here. To live, not to die.
Aspen froze, tears still streaking down her face. “Bayaq…” she breathed.
The raven outside the window let out a long, echoing call—one that made the Cullens turn their heads across campus, one that made Sam pause mid-patrol before his first class starts.
For the first time, Aspen didn’t run from the sound.
She listened.
The smell of varnished gym floors still clung to the back of Aspen’s throat—sour, chemical, unreal. Her breath came in short, shivering gasps as the walls of Forks High seemed to pulse around her. She wanted to breathe, but every inhale dragged her backward, through time, through pain.
It began with the memory. The one her mind never meant to let her see again.
She could feel it—sixteen years old, trembling with fear, the world too sharp, too loud. The sound of her cousin’s voice, the sting on the left side of her skull, the echo of boys laughing behind lockers. The sound of flesh meeting bone when her fist struck back.
That first fit of rage had been a storm born from years of silence. Not rebellion—survival.
The red haze of memory bled into the present. Aspen blinked, realizing her hands were clenched, knuckles white. Her classmates were staring.
Her chest hitched, laughter bubbling up, manic and broken. “I’m fine,” she whispered, to no one, to everyone, to the ghosts of her past.
But she wasn’t fine. She was a woman trapped in her own adolescence again—every therapy session undone, every scar reopened.
Aspen’s body trembled. “Why me?” she muttered under her breath, too softly for human ears—but not for his. “Why did you choose me to be here? I’m not good. I’m not brave. I was happier when I didn’t have to think, when I followed rules and said prayers that didn’t save anyone.”
She could hear herself choking on the truth—because deep down she knew she’d never been happy, only obedient.
A shiver swept across the gym—no wind, but a presence.
The air seemed to twist in on itself. A feather drifted down again—black as ink, soft as breath—and landed beside her shoe.
The whisper came next, curling through her mind like smoke:
Faith is not obedience, little one.
She froze, eyes wide.
You were not chosen for purity. You were chosen for survival.
Bayaq’s voice held no human inflection—it was layered, ancient, filled with wind and thunder and trickster mirth. You think I wanted a saint? His laughter was a soft croak. No. I wanted someone who knows pain and still speaks kindness. Someone who understands cages.
Tears burned down Aspen’s face. “But I’m tired,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I’m so tired of proving I’m worth something.”
Then stop proving, Bayaq said simply. Just be. Be by my side. Learn from me. I am not your god, nor your savior. I am only the storm that teaches the ground to hold.
His tone softened, almost human. Have faith in yourself, not in me. But let me walk with you.
“Coach?” Jessica Stanley’s voice wobbled. “Um, I think Aspen’s having a panic attack!”
Coach Colunga, gruff but not unkind, waved for the class to quiet down. “Alright, everyone back off—give her some space!”
Lauren Mallory, for once, didn’t roll her eyes. She chewed her lip, glancing between Aspen and Jessica. “Maybe she just… realized how close she came to dying, y’know? Like it just hit her.”
Jessica nodded, already kneeling beside Aspen. “Hey, Aspen, you’re okay. You’re safe, alright? Just… breathe with me, okay? In… and out…”
Aspen blinked, eyes unfocused but trying to follow Jessica’s hand movements. She could barely hear her words through the ringing in her ears—but she could feel the warmth of human care.
Coach Colunga fetched a water bottle. “Stanley, stay with her until she’s steady. Mallory, help me get these kids back to drills.”
Lauren hesitated—then gently squeezed Aspen’s shoulder before walking away. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
As the class moved back to normal, Aspen sat on the bleachers, water trembling in her hands. The whisper came again, softer this time.
Even the small mercies count, Bayaq murmured. That girl—Jessica—she listens. Keep her close. Mortals forget that kindness is older than gods.
Aspen exhaled shakily. “You really are everywhere, aren’t you?”
A sound like feathers brushing the floor. Everywhere someone calls for help and no god answers. That’s where I am.
Aspen smiled weakly, the first genuine expression since the dream. “So you’re my mentor now?”
If you’ll let me be.
She looked down at her hands—still trembling, still real. Then nodded once, the faintest acceptance.
“Fine,” she whispered. “But I still don’t trust you.”
Good. Bayaq’s chuckle echoed like distant thunder. Never trust a raven. Just listen when it sings.
And for the first time since she’d awoken in this world, Aspen felt something like peace. It wasn’t safety, not yet—but it was the beginning of faith on her own terms.
The memory began in warmth—soft light through frosted windows, the kind that made even dust motes look like glittering angels.
Little Aspen was no older than six, cheeks pink from winter’s bite, giggling under freshly warmed sheets as her mother shook them out with theatrical flourish.
“Fresh from the dryer!” her mother announced proudly, tucking the corners around her daughter’s small body. “See? A gift from God Himself—He must’ve known my little one needed warmth.”
Aspen squealed, kicking her legs as the fabric fell around her like a cocoon. “A gift from God!” she repeated through laughter.
Then her mother leaned closer, the playfulness giving way to mock-serious tone. “But remember something, my love. Never—” she paused for dramatic effect, eyes twinkling, “—never dance with the devil.”
Aspen blinked up at her, confused but curious.
“Never make a deal with him either,” her mother continued softly, brushing back her daughter’s curls. “Because the devil, mi cielo, was once the most beautiful of angels. The most handsome man God ever made. That’s why people forget to run when they should.”
Aspen, with the solemnity only a child could muster, whispered, “Never trust a handsome man.”
Her mother smiled, then broke the spell with a tickle attack. “That’s my girl!”
Their laughter filled the house, the sound of love and safety echoing through a winter afternoon that would live forever in the corners of Aspen’s memory.
The memory shattered into cold fluorescent light and the low hum of the school’s heating vents. Aspen blinked, realizing she was leaning against the shoulder of a classmate helping her down the hall. Her knees were still unsteady, gym clothes sticking to her from panic-sweat.
“Almost there,” the student murmured, pushing open the nurse’s office door. “You just sit down, okay? I’ll tell Coach where you are.”
Aspen nodded faintly, lowering herself onto the cot.
The room was dim, the blinds half-closed, the air tinged with antiseptic and peppermint. The nurse was gone—probably on her break. But Aspen wasn’t alone.
Two voices murmured near the far end of the room.
Edward. And Rosalie.
They froze the moment the door clicked shut behind Aspen’s helper.
Rosalie’s voice came first, a sharp whisper: “You’re certain it was hers?”
Edward’s reply was quieter, troubled. “It was beside her bag. No one else noticed it but me—and Carlisle says the markings aren’t natural. They’re carved, burned… deliberate.”
Aspen stiffened on the cot, pretending to rest, her eyes cracked open just enough to see their silhouettes.
Rosalie folded her arms. “So we have a human girl who somehow summons strange symbols and a black feather that reeks of old magic—and Carlisle wants to talk to the wolves before we deal with it?”
Edward’s jaw clenched. “He believes there’s a connection to their legends. But…” He paused, voice low and bitter. “I think there’s something else. Something older. And that feather—”
He stopped suddenly. His gaze shifted, landing directly on Aspen though she kept her eyes half-lidded.
Her heart thudded hard.
Edward’s expression faltered, a flicker of confusion in his golden eyes. He could feel her thoughts trying to shield themselves—an almost physical barrier. Not silence, but a storm.
And through that storm… one echo repeated, looping endlessly.
Never trust a handsome man. Never trust a handsome man. Never trust—
Edward’s mouth tightened in offense, almost as if he’d been personally insulted. Rosalie, oblivious, continued. “Maybe she’s cursed. Or maybe this is a sign that having humans near us always ends in disaster.”
Aspen finally spoke, voice quiet but steady. “Maybe it’s rude to talk about people who are right here.”
Both vampires froze.
Rosalie blinked, startled—then gave a sharp smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Well. Someone’s awake.”
Edward’s brows furrowed. He was unsettled—not because Aspen had caught them whispering, but because of what he sensed. Her mind wasn’t open, like most humans—it was closed and echoing, as if it existed across two worlds. And somewhere, faint but distinct, he thought he heard laughter.
Feathers on your conscience, boy? a strange voice teased in his head before vanishing like smoke.
Edward’s jaw tightened. He looked at Aspen again—this strange girl who dared to defy his composure, who saw through him in ways he didn’t understand.
She looked at him calmly now, though her fingers trembled slightly. My mother would call you the devil himself, she thought, just for herself.
And she’d be right.
Edward turned away sharply, almost as if he’d heard.
Rosalie sighed. “Come on, Edward. Let’s give the nurse space when she gets back.”
The two left, the door clicking shut behind them.
Aspen exhaled, shaky but steady, staring at the faint imprint of a feather still visible in the dust on the floor.
Bayaq’s whisper returned, softer now, like the brush of wings. Even the devils are afraid of the dark, little one. You—however—might just belong to it.
Aspen pulled her knees to her chest and smiled faintly. “Then I guess I’m finally home.”
Perfect — this section builds gorgeously on Aspen’s defiance and her self-awareness inside the “fiction.”
The nurse—Mrs. Choi, a soft-spoken woman who always smelled faintly of eucalyptus and lemon tea—dabbed antiseptic against Aspen’s side with a kind of hesitant awe.
“You poor dear,” she murmured. “That bear really did a number on you.”
Aspen forced a smile, her laugh sounding more like a sigh. “Yeah. Bears and I are in a complicated relationship.”
The nurse chuckled faintly, unaware that the girl before her was fighting something far stranger than wildlife or winter. Her touch was tender, motherly almost, and for a fleeting second Aspen felt the phantom warmth of her own mother’s hands again—the ones that tucked her under freshly warmed covers, that smelled of cinnamon and fabric softener.
“Never dance with the devil,” her mother’s voice whispered through memory like the hush of snow. “Never make a deal with him either.”
Aspen blinked hard. The fluorescent lights hummed above her, the world wobbled for a second, and she saw—faintly—the outline of black feathers curling under the exam table. They shimmered, then vanished as if they’d never been there at all.
By the time the nurse finished and reluctantly let Aspen go, she’d already called her parents, leaving a shaky voicemail about “minor reopened wounds” and “stress episodes.” Aspen barely heard the rest—she could already picture her mom’s voice cracking on the phone, her mom pacing the kitchen, her dog Eros waiting by the door.
Her parents had raced to school, anyway, worry carved into every line of their faces. They hugged her so tightly she thought her ribs might crack again. Her stepmom’s lips brushed her forehead, her dad’s voice was trembling with protective scolding, but Aspen was already halfway gone—drifting away from them, toward the cafeteria and the strange pull of this not-quite-real world.
And even as she escaped their fussing, she felt it again: the sensation of her skin shifting shades under invisible hands. In the corners of mirrors, her brown tone flickered—replaced for a blink by a ghostly pale version of herself. Meyer, she realized bitterly. Trying to make me easier to sell.
Aspen tugged at her sleeve and hissed under her breath, “I’m not your palette, lady.”
Bayaq’s voice brushed against her thoughts, low and almost amused:
She cannot rewrite what is already written in your blood.
That steadied her. She walked into the cafeteria determined, clutching the plastic tray like a weapon. She was starving—half delirious from exhaustion and hunger—but her eyes still darted over the tables, hungry for gossip, for texture, for proof that she could live here without dissolving into the script.
Angela was giggling, cheeks pink, as Eric Yorkie did his best impression of a wingman, talking too loud about Ben Cheney’s “hidden charm.” It was painfully sweet. Aspen smirked—her first real smile that day.
This was the part of the story she could work with.
Let Meyer think she’s the scandalous rival, the chaotic anomaly in the script.
Let the narrative underestimate her.
Aspen had bigger plans now—plans woven in black feathers and whispered prophecies. She’d rewrite what needed rewriting. Heal what Meyer broke. Keep Bella’s story from curdling into obsession and give the wolves back their freedom.
She just had to survive long enough to do it.
And maybe, if the universe was merciful—
she’d get a corndog.
Chapter 6: I Know of Rage, but do You?
Summary:
This will be slowly update throughout the week or day! I am having hard time lately emotionally not because anyone else but lack of sleep and body trying to recover.
I want to say if you feel rage, it doesn't mean you a bad person
Notes:
I had to call non-emergency number on someone because I didn't know if they were asleep or passed out by the bus spot! I did a good deed I hope- I didn't know if I was supposed to do CPR or not because what if it was heat stroke?
Like that's bad to do CPR on heat stroke people or people having strokes, you know?!
I just think- I could do more- but I didn't know what?!
g
god- I hope he okay- I hope he safe!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aspen’s tray rattled as she slid into an open seat near Angela, Jessica, and a few others. The cafeteria was the same as always—buzzing fluorescent lights, the smell of pizza grease and overcooked broccoli, the chatter of teenagers pretending the world didn’t hang by invisible threads.
Lunch today was oddly balanced between “bland” and “cursed”:
-
Pizza squares that tasted like rubbery ketchup and regret.
-
A scoop of mashed potatoes that jiggled like it was alive.
-
A single, limp pickle.
-
And, to Aspen’s delight, a row of corn dogs fresh from the fryer—golden, steaming, and practically singing her name.
She pounced on the corn dog first, biting into it with something close to reverence.
“Finally,” she mumbled. “Something real.”
“Real?” whispered a voice by her right ear—smooth, dry, and threaded with laughter. “You call that processed meat ‘real,’ little saint?”
Aspen froze mid-bite. Bayaq’s tone was teasing but rich with mischief, like he was leaning just over her shoulder—close enough to fog the edge of her reality.
She swallowed. “Don’t start,” she muttered under her breath.
“Humans,” Bayaq continued lazily, his voice dipping lower, almost fond.
“They season their suffering with ketchup and call it comfort. Even angels couldn’t stomach such cuisine.”
Aspen nearly choked trying not to laugh. The whole table looked up.
Angela blinked. Jessica frowned.
“You okay, Aspen?” Jessica asked, pausing with her yogurt spoon halfway to her mouth.
Aspen waved her off, coughing into her napkin. “Fine, fine—just… air bubble. Classic corn dog betrayal.”
Across from her, Mike Newton snorted. “That’s like—every Tuesday for me.”
Aspen grinned weakly, tears in her eyes from laughing and choking at the same time. It was ridiculous. It was human. For a brief moment, she felt like she could breathe again—like maybe she could play along with Meyer’s world if it meant stealing little moments like this.
Bayaq chuckled in her ear, a faint, shadowy sound that twisted the air for only her to feel. “Careful, little saint. They’ll think you’re possessed.”
Aspen’s grin widened. “Maybe I am.”
And for a second, the light flickered above their table—just once—and every shadow in the cafeteria bent subtly toward her before straightening again.
Edward’s POV
He saw it.
That flicker. That distortion in the air that made even his marble-hard nerves hum with static.
From across the cafeteria, he’d been watching her—trying not to, for Jasper’s sake. The girl’s laughter rolled through the noise like sunlight through storm clouds, and that alone irritated him beyond reason.
“Stop staring,” Jasper muttered under his breath, forcing another fake bite of his uneaten apple. “You’re doing the thing again.”
“I’m not—” Edward started, then froze. Aspen laughed again—out loud this time—and something shifted. The space around her glimmered faintly, almost imperceptibly. The hum of the students’ minds stuttered and rewound, like a scratched record.
And then, for one impossible heartbeat, Edward couldn’t read her thoughts at all. Just silence. Beautiful, dangerous silence.
“...Edward’s broken,” Emmett muttered around a mouthful of food, trying not to grin.
Rosalie rolled her eyes dramatically. “He’s sulking because he found his mate and she’s not impressed.”
Alice stifled a laugh behind her hand. “Rosalie…”
Edward’s jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
“Oh, come on,” Rosalie said, pretending innocence. “She’s got that chaos sparkle you like. Dark brown eyes, backbone, not immediately swooning at your brooding—totally your type.”
Emmett snorted soda through his nose. “Chaos sparkle!”
“Enough,” Edward hissed under his breath, gripping the edge of the table until the metal dented.
Jasper sighed, reaching over to calm him with a wave of emotion—serenity, composure—but it tangled weirdly against Edward’s fury.
Because Edward didn’t just dislike Aspen.
He resented her.
She shouldn’t exist. Her mind refused to open to him, her emotions twisted the fabric of their world, and something in her presence made the edges of reality glitch.
If he let himself think too long, he’d admit he was afraid.
But fear wasn’t in his vocabulary—so he called it contempt instead.
“She’s not human,” he muttered. “She’s not even… supposed to be here.”
Alice leaned her chin on her hand, eyes glittering with distant knowing. “Neither are we, technically.”
Edward shot her a look sharp enough to kill a mortal.
But even then, even after the bell rang and students started clearing out, his gaze drifted back toward Aspen—still laughing, still alive in a way he hadn’t been for a century.
And behind her seat, where her shadow touched the floor, he saw a faint imprint: the shape of a single black feather.
Alice leaned back in her chair, watching her brother with that knowing little smirk only she could wear — half prophecy, half mischief.
The threads of fate were already writhing in her mind like bright strings of light: a clumsy girl with brown hair, a scent Edward wouldn’t resist, and chaos that would make their family fracture and reform. But that was later.
For now, Alice was enjoying this prelude.
Edward was spiraling — obsessing before the true storm. Aspen Milagros Arroyo wasn’t even meant to be in this world, and yet here she was, rewiring him in real time.
“She won’t be the last, brother,” Alice whispered to herself, vision already flickering between futures. “But she’ll be the one who cracks your calm before Bella does.”
After Lunch — Edward and Aspen
Edward found her outside the cafeteria, half-lit by the gray Forks sky. The world smelled of damp pavement, teenage adrenaline, and the ghost of storm clouds. Aspen was perched on the concrete ledge by the door, happily munching what looked like another corn dog.
She noticed him instantly — or maybe she’d felt the temperature drop when he approached.
“Miss Arroyo,” Edward greeted, voice brittle and cool, like glass ready to shatter. “May I have a word?”
Aspen tilted her head. “Sure, brooding vampire boy, make it quick. I’m on a lunch high.”
His eyes narrowed. “You shouldn’t joke about things you don’t understand.”
“Who says I don’t?” she said around another bite, lips curling. “You’ve been staring at me all day like I’m a buffet. I figured I’d even the playing field.”
And then — to his absolute horror — Aspen stood on her tiptoes and held out the corn dog toward his mouth. “Here. Protein. You look like you haven’t eaten in a century.”
Edward froze, jaw tightening. Every part of him screamed against the proximity — the warmth of her hand, the heartbeat in her throat, the rush of living blood pulsing right there beneath her skin.
She smiled innocently. “Come on, bite.”
He caught her wrist before she could push it closer. His hand was cold and trembling slightly, the way only controlled monsters tremble when they’re seconds from losing it.
“Don’t,” he said softly, dangerously.
Aspen just looked at him — curious, not afraid. “You’re dramatic for someone who sparkles.”
That one line nearly broke him.
Before Edward could even conjure a response, Aspen’s phone chimed — a bright, ordinary little sound in the fog-thick air. She pulled it from her pocket, ignoring him completely.
Paul Lahote: Detention again 🙄 wanna hang later?
A slow smile spread across her face. “Guess I’m busy later.”
Edward’s expression shifted — not jealousy, exactly, but a mix of suspicion and offense. “Does your family know you keep company with boys like him?”
Aspen blinked, then laughed. “You sound like my mom when she’s in a sermon mood.”
“I’m trying to warn you,” Edward said tightly. “You don’t—”
“—need a lecture from a cold-blooded moral compass,” Aspen cut in.
“You think you’re danger incarnate, but you’re just… moody. What’s the word? Petty.”
For a second, the air between them changed. The shadow under Edward’s feet deepened, stretching long and spindly. His throat worked, eyes darkening to pitch.
If he wanted, he could’ve lunged — could’ve ended her heartbeat mid-sentence. His body remembered that hunger even if his conscience didn’t.
But Aspen just stood there, corn dog still in hand, utterly unafraid.
And that unnerved him more than any weapon could have.
From somewhere behind her shoulder, a voice—soft as thunder over water—whispered only for her to hear:
“He watches you like prey, but he forgets ravens dine on carrion, too.”
Bayaq’s laughter rippled faintly through the mist as Aspen smiled to herself, pocketed her phone, and walked away—leaving Edward standing in the cold with her scent, her defiance, and a strange ache in his chest he couldn’t name.
Edward’s sour expression never left him the rest of the school day.
He walked through Forks High like a ghost with clenched teeth—his jaw a vice, his mind a looping static.
Aspen Milagros Arroyo.
A name that should’ve meant nothing, yet now it lingered in his head like a hymn he couldn’t stop hearing.
Milagros. Miracles.
Arroyo. Riverbed.
Her name sounded holy—water and wonder.
Yet everything about her made him feel unholy.
She had laughed in his face, fed him mortal food like a child teasing a lion, and then walked away with that smile. That human smile.
And the most infuriating part?
He could still feel the warmth of her pulse through his fingers from when he caught her wrist.
Cullen House — Private Study
The rain had deepened by the time Edward returned home. Carlisle’s office glowed amber under its tall lamps, books lined in neat rows. The scent of paper, oak, and old ink filled the air—comforting, grounding, human.
Carlisle looked up from a journal entry as Edward appeared in the doorway. “You’ve been quiet all evening,” he said calmly. “Would you like to talk about it?”
Edward didn’t answer at first. He just stared at the fire.
Then, like he’d rehearsed it, he said flatly:
“She’s dangerous.”
Carlisle’s brow furrowed. “Aspen?”
“Yes.” Edward turned sharply toward him. “She’s not what she appears. There’s something unnatural around her. I can feel it, Carlisle—like the air bends when she walks by. She knows too much. She’s mocking everything we are.”
“Edward—”
“No, listen to me,” Edward snapped. “I can hear thoughts, and yet hers—hers are half noise, half prayer, half something else. It’s not human. It’s not even alive the way it should be. The wolves’ land reacts to her. The birds follow her. Even the light bends around her! If we don’t act—”
Carlisle held up a hand. “Act, how?”
Edward hesitated, then said the word like venom: “Eliminate her.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than thunder.
Carlisle exhaled slowly, setting down his pen. “You’re advocating for violence against a girl you barely know. A student, Edward.”
Edward’s voice cracked. “You don’t understand what she is.”
Carlisle rose, his golden eyes steady and sharp. “What she is, my son, is lost. Frightened. A human caught between forces she doesn’t understand. If there’s something ancient at work, then killing her will destroy whatever balance there is left. You must not let fear make you cruel.”
Edward’s nostrils flared. “You’re too trusting.”
“And you are too proud,” Carlisle countered softly. “If something powerful walks with this girl, we must not fight it—we must learn from it. Perhaps the Quileute elders know more. If so, we’ll go to them. Together.”
Edward’s mouth opened to protest again—but Carlisle’s calm, commanding tone left no room for it.
“Do you understand me, Edward? We are not hunters. We are stewards of our choices. Do not become the thing you fear.”
Edward turned away, fuming in silence.
But deep down—beneath the fury—something in him twisted with doubt.
After School — Aspen and Paul
By the time Aspen left her last class, the rain had turned to mist—thin and silver, curling around the edges of the trees. She spotted Paul waiting by his car near the school’s edge, detention long over.
A few ravens perched on the lampposts above them, silent and watchful. Their feathers gleamed blue-black in the gray light.
“Rough day, huh?” Paul called out, trying to sound casual. But his knuckles were still red.
“Yeah,” Aspen said, adjusting her backpack. “You look like you punched a wall.”
“Not a wall,” he muttered, glaring toward the parking lot where a group of boys had just left. “Couple idiots thought spreading rumors was funny. Said I was dating some weird girl who might be a witch or whatever. They called you names.”
Aspen blinked. “So you got detention because of me?”
Paul shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Didn’t like how they talked about you, that’s all. I can handle a few days’ detention.”
Aspen felt her heart tighten a little. “Paul…”
He grinned, eyes softening. “Hey, don’t look like that. You’d do the same for someone you cared about, right?”
She looked away, hiding her small smile. “Maybe.”
But above them, the ravens began to move—circling once, then again, wings whispering like silk over a drumbeat of air.
The world flickered—just for a second.
The trees shimmered into static, the asphalt rippled like water, and the clouds burned gold from within.
Paul didn’t seem to notice.
But Aspen did. She could feel Bayaq’s presence hum like a pulse through her bones.
“He defends you with fists,” the voice said in her mind, amused and ancient.
“But I defend you with storms. Remember, girl—loyalty has many forms.”
Aspen shivered, rubbing her arms. “You feel that?”
Paul frowned. “Feel what?”
She hesitated. Then lied. “Cold wind. Must be the rain.”
He nodded and opened the car door for her. “Come on, let’s get out of here before it starts again.”
As she climbed in, Aspen looked once more at the ravens.
One tilted its head—almost like it was smiling.
The meeting took place on a strip of neutral land — the old clearing between the pines, where moss grew thick and soft as velvet underfoot.
The Cullens stood on one side: Carlisle calm as ever, Esme a quiet warmth beside him, and Edward slightly apart, his gaze faraway but sharp as glass. Across from them stood Sam and the elders of La Push, men who carried the weight of stories older than any vampire could dream to be.
Carlisle was the first to speak, his voice careful and reverent. “We’re not here to intrude. Only to understand. Whatever is happening with Aspen… it’s not something we’ve seen before.”
The eldest, Old Quil, spoke slowly, his voice like cracking bark. “Then perhaps it’s not meant for you to understand.”
Sam’s jaw clenched. His eyes didn’t move from Edward’s face. He didn’t like being there—Edward could feel that clearly, like static in the back of his skull.
(They don’t belong here. They already take what they want. Now they want our stories, too?)
Edward blinked, the thought sharp as glass. He didn’t react aloud, but he glanced once toward Sam, a flicker of apology ghosting in his golden eyes.
Old Quil raised his weathered hand. “The Bayaq,” he said at last, and everyone seemed to breathe in at once. “A spirit of the in-between. Half shadow, half reflection. It appears when the balance between story and life has been broken. When someone becomes too aware of the story they’re living in.”
Carlisle’s brow furrowed. “A… spirit of the in-between?”
The elder nodded. “You’d call it a myth. But we have seen it before, in traces. Dreams that bleed into the waking world. Voices that echo where no one stands. When a story’s power grows too strong, the Bayaq steps in — to erase or correct what shouldn’t have been.”
Edward caught the quiet fear in Sam’s thoughts.
(Aspen. This all started with her. The flickering. The strange visions. If the Cullens know about Bayaq, they’ll think they can stop it—or use it.)
Sam’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and controlled. “We shouldn’t be telling you this. These are our stories, not your science project.”
Carlisle inclined his head. “We’re not scientists here, Sam. We’re a family trying to help someone both our worlds care about.”
Sam looked away, jaw tight. He didn’t answer.
Meanwhile, Aspen and Paul drove in tense quiet through the coastal roads, headlights slicing through a rain that looked more like static than water. The flickering had grown worse — sometimes the trees outside looked too green, like movie props; other times, Paul’s reflection in the window didn’t quite match his movements.
Aspen tried to focus on the road. “You ever get the feeling something’s… rewriting itself while you’re living it?”
Paul glanced at her. “You mean, like déjà vu?”
“No,” Aspen said. Her voice trembled. “Like… like someone keeps hitting backspace on my life and typing a new version.”
Paul frowned, but before he could speak, the radio cut on by itself — a song she recognized, something sugary and old: “Oops!... I Did It Again.”
Aspen froze. “No way.”
Paul reached to turn it off, but the screen flickered — static, then words scrolled across it in black text that didn’t belong to any station:
“The world loves her. Everyone loves her.”
Aspen’s pulse thundered. “No. No, no, no. This isn’t—”
She looked out the window, and for a split second, she didn’t see Forks. She saw a soundstage — rows of lights above her, a camera tracking the car. And in the mirror, her reflection was smiling, even though she wasn’t.
Paul pulled over. “Aspen, hey—what’s going on?”
Her breath came out shaky. “She’s doing it again. Meyer. She’s rewriting it so everyone wants me with you, so I’m the one who messes everything up. The girl who’s too much. The girl who doesn’t fit her rules.”
Her voice cracked on the next words. “I don’t want to be her story’s villain.”
Paul reached out, his warmth grounding her for a moment. “Then don’t be.”
But the radio spoke again, in that soft, mechanical voice—
“Every story needs a main girl.”
And just like that, the lights outside flickered again — between Forks and fiction — until Aspen wasn’t sure if the road under her wheels was real, or just another rewrite.
Aspen’s world fell away in an instant.
The headlights, Paul’s voice, the soft patter of rain — all of it dissolved into black water.
She floated, weightless and sinking all at once, swallowed by a darkness so deep it shimmered like ink. The silence pressed against her chest until it cracked. Then, a voice rippled through the void.
“You shouldn’t have brought that thing with you, Aspen.”
Meyer’s tone was sweet — the kind of sweetness that rots your teeth. It echoed everywhere and nowhere, as if the darkness itself were her mouth.
Aspen spun in the nothingness, searching. “Where are you? Show yourself.”
“Why should I? You don’t listen anyway. You never follow the script. You were supposed to stay quiet — to obey until Bella arrived. But no, you had to bring the Bayaq into my world.”
Aspen’s laugh came out hollow. “Your world? You mean the one you built out of stolen hearts and borrowed names?”
The voice hissed — a ripple through the dark sea.
Aspen’s feet brushed something solid — a shimmer beneath her. The abyss pulsed like a living thing, glowing faintly in shades of blue and gray, as if stars had drowned there long ago.
“You don’t even know what Bayaq is,” Meyer said, her voice curling like smoke. “You think you can use him, but he’s chaos. A trickster. He doesn’t belong in my narrative.”
Aspen closed her eyes. “He’s not yours to define.”
And though her voice trembled, it carried. “Bayaq — or Bayak — is the raven. He’s the clever one, the trickster, the one who brings light to the dark. In Quileute stories, he helps, but he also tests. He shows what greed and arrogance do to people. You call him a glitch, but he’s balance. He’s truth.”
A sound like distant laughter rippled through the water.
Aspen continued, softly but fiercely, “You stole his people’s stories, twisted their words into props for your romance. Maybe that’s why he’s here now. Maybe this isn’t an accident.”
She leaned forward, as if speaking directly into Meyer’s unseen face. “Maybe you wronged his people. And this is payback — bringing me into your fiction to show you what happens when you play god.”
A long pause. Then Meyer’s voice turned cold, like glass cracking underwater.
“You think you’re chosen? You’re just a typo. A mistake I haven’t erased yet.”
The abyss shook — and the next moment, Aspen was ripped upward, light slashing through the dark.
Paul’s truck jolted violently as if something invisible had slammed into it. The tires skidded across wet pavement, and Aspen’s head hit the passenger window with a sickening thud.
“Aspen!” Paul’s hands gripped the wheel hard enough to make it groan. He yanked the truck to the shoulder, heart hammering.
She was holding her temple, tears spilling down her cheeks — not just from pain, but from rage. “She did it. She did that!”
Paul’s instincts kicked in — that hot, protective edge that lived just beneath his skin. He unbuckled, leaning close, his hands hovering just shy of touching her face. “Hey—hey, look at me. You’re okay. You’re bleeding a little, but you’re okay.”
He brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, his voice rough but gentle. “Tell me who did it. Tell me what the hell’s going on.”
Aspen choked out a laugh that sounded too tired for her age. “She doesn’t want me here. Meyer’s—she’s trying to erase me.”
Paul blinked, his eyes dark and stormy. “Then she’ll have to go through me first.”
He ripped a flannel from the backseat and pressed it gently against the bump rising on her temple. “You’re not a mistake, got it? I don’t care what this—whatever this story thinks. You’re real to me.”
Aspen’s voice shook. “Even if I’m just words on her page?”
Paul met her gaze — fierce, loyal, stubborn to his core. “Then I’ll burn the damn page before I let her hurt you again.”
Outside, thunder rolled. For a split second, the clouds above flickered — and in the reflection of the truck window, a shadowy raven flew across the sky.
Paul’s hands were still trembling on the steering wheel when Aspen whispered, “Follow it.”
The raven glided low across the rain-slick road, its feathers catching flashes of the headlights like obsidian shards.
Paul frowned. “You mean that bird?”
Aspen’s voice was quiet but certain. “Yeah. Please, Paul. Just follow it.”
He sighed through his nose, trying to mask his worry with that usual edge of sarcasm. “You hit your head, Aspen. Maybe we should get you checked out before we start chasing wildlife.”
But she looked at him with such raw conviction that it made his throat tighten. There was fear in her eyes, but something else too — a fierce, desperate need.
He started the engine again. “Fine. But if this ends with me in a ditch, you’re explaining it to the paramedics.”
The raven led them down an unmarked road — one that wasn’t supposed to exist on any map. The deeper they drove, the thicker the fog became, curling in from the forest like breath from a sleeping giant. Paul could barely see the bird now, just flashes of black in the mist.
“Where even are we?” he muttered, leaning forward.
Aspen didn’t answer. Her hand pressed against the window, eyes wide as the world outside began to shimmer — like heat waves over asphalt.
Then the raven landed in the middle of the road ahead.
Paul hit the brakes. “That’s it. I’m done following—”
But Aspen had already flung open the door.
“Aspen!” he shouted, scrambling after her. She was running straight toward something he couldn’t see — something the air itself seemed to ripple around.
And then she was gone.
Paul swore and sprinted after her, crossing into the space she had vanished into.
The world folded.
The ground dropped from beneath his feet, and a violent rush of vertigo hit him like a wave. He staggered, clutching his stomach as his vision blurred. Everything he knew — the cliffs, the forest, the endless gray sky — twisted and peeled away like a painting burning at the edges.
His knees hit what felt like glass — and when he looked up, he saw everything.
It wasn’t the forest anymore. It was a blank, endless void — and flickering fragments of memory: bonfires, laughter, the ocean, faces of friends. But they weren’t real. They were drawn. Painted. Trapped between the lines of someone’s imagination.
“What—what the hell is this?” he gasped.
Then it hit him — a clarity that burned. He wasn’t real.
He wasn’t born, he was written. Every fight, every scar, every emotion — all of it crafted for someone else’s story.
His breathing fractured. He could feel his pulse in his throat, but even that felt hollow now. “No—no, no, this isn’t—”
His voice broke. He screamed, fists slamming against the nothing around him, the sound swallowed instantly by the void. “You can’t do this! You can’t—just make me nothing!”
Somewhere in the distance, a faint light flickered — the same shimmer Aspen had disappeared through.
Aspen had reached it. The line.
Her way home.
She could feel it — the pull of air that smelled like her bedroom, her old life, sunlight through dusty curtains. Her knees trembled as she reached out.
Then she heard him.
Paul’s voice — raw, broken — echoing through the void like an open wound. His grief wasn’t just horror at his existence. It was heartbreak, loss, betrayal — the pain of knowing you never had a choice.
Aspen froze.
Bayaq’s whisper ghosted over her shoulder: “Go, niña. You did what you came for. Leave the boy. This isn’t your burden.”
But Aspen’s chest ached. The kind of ache that never really healed — the one she’d carried since childhood, of seeing pain and doing nothing because she couldn’t afford to care too much.
Not this time.
She turned back and ran.
Paul had fallen to his knees, staring into the dark, trembling like the ground itself was breaking beneath him. Then — warmth. A hand on his shoulder, then two arms wrapping around him.
He stiffened, breath catching as Aspen pulled him close — not like a lover, not like someone saving him out of pity — but like a mother hugging a child after a nightmare.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re not nothing. You’re not.”
He wanted to shove her away. To yell, to demand answers. But instead, he leaned into her, pressing his face against her shoulder as the trembling in his body turned to quiet, ragged breathing.
And just like that — the void cracked open with a sound like thunder.
Light poured in. The smell of wet earth and pine replaced the nothingness. The road returned beneath them — the long stretch leading toward La Push. The world was whole again.
Paul blinked, dazed, still clinging to Aspen. “What—what did you do?”
Aspen exhaled shakily, brushing his hair back. “I didn’t run away this time.”
And as the raven circled above, disappearing into the clouds, the first drop of sunlight broke through — a sign that maybe, for the first time, Aspen had rewritten something that wasn’t meant to change.
Paul slammed the truck door hard enough to rattle the frame. The echo bounced down the empty road as he turned on Aspen, his chest heaving, the veins in his neck visible beneath his skin.
“You did this to me,” he snarled. “Whatever that—thing—was, whatever sick joke you pulled, I saw everything! I saw her! Meyer! And I saw how we end, how I end—like a pawn in someone’s story! You think that’s something I wanted to know?”
Aspen flinched despite herself, the words slicing deep. Her back hit the passenger side door. Paul’s rage wasn’t just loud; it was alive, radiating off him like heat. His eyes—normally a dark, easy brown—were wild now, too bright, flickering with something primal that the human world couldn’t explain.
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t back away.
Instead, she stepped toward him, close enough that he froze. Her hand gripped his shirt near the collar and forced him to look down at her trembling face.
“I know what rage is,” she whispered, her tone soft but edged like broken glass. “I know what it does to a person. You think I haven’t been there? I’ve lived it. I was it.”
Paul blinked, the fury faltering for just a heartbeat.
“I can show you what anger can do,” she went on, quieter, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes, “but don’t take it out on me. You are safe with me. You hear me? You are safe.”
Her grip loosened, sliding down to his hand. “Let me in, Paul. Please.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. The air between them was thick, charged, like the forest before a storm. Then Paul exhaled, the sound shaking out of him, his anger collapsing under the weight of her steadiness. He looked away, swallowing hard.
“Fine,” he muttered, rough and low. “But you’re explaining this to Billy if I end up getting possessed or something.”
Aspen managed a small, broken laugh. “Deal.”
The drive to La Push was mostly silent after that. The rain had stopped, but fog still clung to the ground like it refused to leave. When they pulled into the familiar dirt driveway of Billy Black’s home, the old porch light flickered—a weak, gold glow that barely cut through the gray.
Billy was already waiting by the door, wrapped in a heavy coat, his sharp eyes following the truck’s approach. The moment Aspen stepped out, his gaze fixed on her.
Something ancient flickered behind his calm expression. Not fear, exactly—something older, heavier.
“Aspen Arroyo,” he said, voice low and careful, as if tasting the name for truth. “You’ve brought something with you.”
Aspen froze. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”
Billy’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me, girl. I can feel it. Whatever happened out there changed the air around you. Changed him, too.”
Paul’s jaw tightened. “Billy—”
But the door behind Billy swung open before he could continue. Jacob stood there, his posture tense, eyes locked on Paul. The look he gave him wasn’t just anger—it was protective, territorial, and utterly unreadable.
“Didn’t know we were bringing outsiders home now,” Jacob said coolly.
Paul shot him a glare. “Back off, Jake. It’s not like that.”
“Doesn’t look like that from here,” Jacob muttered, eyes darting to where Aspen and Paul’s hands were still intertwined, instinctively gripping tighter as if grounding each other.
Aspen swallowed hard, the atmosphere around them so thick with tension she could almost taste it. Billy’s voice cut through like thunder.
“Enough.”
The boys fell silent immediately.
Billy turned his attention fully to Aspen again. “Whatever line you crossed out there—it’s not closed. I can feel it still open, humming through the land. The spirits don’t like imbalance.”
Aspen’s pulse raced. “Then how do I fix it?”
Billy studied her for a long, quiet moment. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
Behind her, the raven perched on the porch railing, black feathers gleaming under the dim light, watching her with an all-too-human intensity.
Paul followed her gaze, his hand tightening just slightly in hers. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Me too.”
Inside Billy Black’s house, the air felt thick—charged, humming with something that made Aspen’s skin prickle. It wasn’t just tension; it was spiritual static, like an unseen drumbeat rattling under her ribs.
Jacob’s glare burned holes in the side of Paul’s head as they stepped into the living room. The sound of rain outside turned faint, distant, as if even the storm was holding its breath. Aspen couldn’t help the thought that flickered through her head: boys really are just as dramatic as girls—just louder and more destructive about it.
Paul’s arm was still slung over her shoulders, heavy and possessive, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth. Aspen wasn’t sure if he did it out of habit, out of some half-buried instinct to protect her—or to piss Jacob off. Either way, it worked.
Jacob’s fists clenched at his sides, knuckles cracking. “Real classy, Paul,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “You bring her here just to start something?”
Paul’s smirk sharpened. “Relax, pup. Not everything’s about you.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Jacob shot back.
Aspen took a step forward, exasperated. “Okay, seriously? Can we not turn this into some—some testosterone showdown?”
Both boys blinked at her, momentarily stunned that she’d cut in. She huffed. “I already had one panic attack today. I’m not surviving a pissing contest, too.”
Billy’s amused snort came from his wheelchair by the fireplace. “She’s got a point.”
Before anyone could reply, the door creaked open again. Sam Uley stepped in first, tall and serious, his sharp gaze sweeping the room like a soldier’s. Behind him came two of the elders—Old Quil and Levi—faces grave, eyes older than the ocean itself. The house seemed to bend around their arrival, like the air bowed in respect.
Aspen swallowed. The presence she felt before now thrummed stronger, vibrating in her bones. She caught the faintest flicker of black in the corner of her eye—feathers that weren’t there a second ago, shifting shadows that coiled like smoke.
Bayaq is here.
Billy spoke first. “You all felt it too.” It wasn’t a question.
Old Quil nodded slowly. “The spirits woke restless last night. The boundary stirred.” His gaze slid to Aspen, unreadable. “And she was at its center.”
Aspen froze.
Sam’s jaw tightened. “You’re saying she caused it?”
“No,” Old Quil said quietly. “But she carries something that does.”
The words landed heavy in the room. Meyer’s presence—cold, artificial—seemed to ripple through the air, trying to smother the energy. Aspen felt it like static behind her eyes, a pressure that made her vision glitch for a split second, the colors of the room warping into grayscale before snapping back.
No, she thought fiercely. Not this time.
She clenched her fists at her sides, grounding herself in the rhythm of her breath, in the heat radiating from Paul beside her, in the faint hum of Bayaq’s energy circling her wrists like invisible rings.
“Something’s fighting me,” Old Quil murmured, eyes half-shut as if listening beyond the walls. “Something that doesn’t belong here… trying to rewrite what is.”
Meyer’s whisper slithered through Aspen’s mind—sharp, cruel, familiar. You can’t save them, Aspen. You’re my character now.
Aspen’s pulse thundered. Her voice trembled, but she spoke anyway. “If she’s trying to overwrite the story, then she’s scared.”
Everyone turned to her.
Aspen lifted her chin. “That means we’re doing something right.”
For a moment, silence. Then the fire crackled, throwing sparks that looked—just for a blink—like tiny black feathers.
Billy’s eyes gleamed faintly in the firelight. “Then we best start figuring out what she’s afraid of.”
Sam crossed his arms. “And what exactly is she?”
Paul answered before Aspen could. “A parasite,” he muttered. “She feeds on us like it’s all a game.”
Aspen met his eyes, quietly resolute. “Then let’s make her choke on her own script.”
A low rumble of agreement came from Billy, a murmur of prayer from Old Quil, and in the corner of the room, a shadow in the shape of a raven tilted its head—amused, approving.
The air inside Billy’s house was heavy—thick with the scent of burning cedar, sweat, and something older that didn’t belong to any one tribe or wolf. The flicker of firelight made everything twitch: faces, shadows, the corners of the room where Aspen swore something else was breathing.
Paul was tense beside her, one arm still loosely slung over her shoulders like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to protect her or start a fight. Jacob glared from across the room, jaw locked, the veins in his neck standing out. Sam stood by the doorway, his expression unreadable, while the elders—Billy, Old Quil, and the others—watched Aspen with something between awe and suspicion.
When Aspen spoke, her voice trembled at first, then rose like a wave that didn’t know if it wanted to crash or retreat.
“I’m not from here. I mean—not this version of here,” she blurted, fingers tightening around her jeans. “Where I’m from, this world—your world—it’s just a story. A book series written by a woman named Stephenie Meyer. She… she made you all into watered-down versions of yourselves. Entertainment for girls my age to obsess over vampires and love triangles.”
A murmur rippled through the room. Paul tensed but didn’t interrupt. Jacob scoffed under his breath.
“I know how that sounds,” Aspen continued, words tumbling now, fear leaking into every syllable. “But I’m telling the truth. There’s a reason I know things I shouldn’t—like Bella showing up, and everything falling apart after she does. Jacob—you imprint on a half-vampire baby, Edward wants to die for love, and the treaty collapses.”
Billy’s brows furrowed. “You’re saying you’ve read our lives?”
Aspen’s voice cracked. “No. I lived reading them! And then something—someone—pulled me in. Bayaq. They-he is ancient. He forced me here, said I needed to fix the story, fix their people before Meyer erases what’s left of the truth. And now they're in my head, and Meyer’s trying to kill me off—like a deleted scene that never existed.”
She laughed then, a sharp, broken sound that made everyone flinch. “Do you get it? I’m terrified. I’m not supposed to be real. But neither are you.”
Silence.
Paul stood, running a hand over his face, anger and confusion flickering through him like heat waves.
“You’re saying I’m—what? Fiction? A joke on some shelf in your world?”
Aspen nodded, eyes glistening. “You’re more than that here. That’s why I’m scared. You’re not fake—you’re what they couldn’t write right.”
Sam looked to the elders, muttering something under his breath.
Old Quil whispered a prayer. Jacob scoffed louder this time, muttering something about “crazy new girl,” but even he couldn’t mask the unease crawling through his stance.
Billy, however, leaned forward, voice deep and careful.
“What you’re describing… isn’t impossible,” he said softly. “Spirits cross worlds. Names are power. If this Bayaq truly sent you, then it’s not the author we should fear—it’s what she disturbed.”
Paul’s jaw twitched. “You believe her?”
Billy didn’t answer right away. “I believe something ancient is watching her. Watching all of us.”
The tension fractured the room. Sam started talking quietly with Billy and Old Quil—something about contacting the Cullens, about not telling them everything. Paul’s voice soon joined in, low and sharp, defending Aspen. “She didn’t ask for this. You think she wants to know she’s not supposed to exist?”
Aspen slipped outside then, her chest tight and eyes burning. The night air was colder than it should’ve been, carrying the smell of salt and woodsmoke. She leaned against the porch post, exhaling shakily.
“I broke them,” she whispered to the dark.
The ravens were waiting again—three of them this time—black eyes glimmering in the firelight from inside.
Then came Bayaq’s voice, smooth and ancient, curling around Aspen’s thoughts like mist.
No, little flame. You cracked them. Cracks let truth bleed through.
Aspen swallowed. “I should’ve told them more. About who I really am. That I’m… not a teen. That I’m trapped here like this.”
And break them completely? No. Let them see your courage first, not your burden. They must believe before they can understand.
Aspen clenched her fists. “I think they already think I’m crazy.”
The ravens tilted their heads in eerie unison.
Then let them think that. The truth is always madness before revelation.
Aspen looked back at the flickering windows where the silhouettes of wolves and men argued, her heart pounding with something between guilt and determination.
“Then what now?” she asked quietly.
Wait, Bayaq murmured. Wait until the author writes her next move. Then you will know where to strike.
Inside Billy’s small house, the conversation had twisted into something sharp, raw, and dangerous. Aspen pressed herself against the outer wall, listening to every word like it was a lifeline—and a curse.
Sam’s voice was the first to cut through the argument, deep and commanding.
“Enough, both of you!”
There was the sound of something heavy hitting the table, maybe a fist. Aspen flinched.
“Jacob, Paul—you two stay out of this. This isn’t about ego or pride or who’s got the bigger temper. This is about the tribe. The elders are trying to understand what we’re dealing with, not tear each other apart over some girl.”
“She’s not just some girl,” Paul snapped, his voice trembling with the kind of fury that came from confusion more than anger. “You didn’t see her face when she said it, Sam! She’s scared. Whatever this Bayaq is—it’s messing with her.”
Jacob scoffed. “Or she’s just crazy, Paul. Maybe she read too much and lost it. Happens to some people. The imprint thing you said she knew about—come on, that’s not proof of anything.”
“You think I’d lie about that?” Paul growled, the sound low and rumbling in his chest.
“Enough!” Sam barked again. “You both sound like pups fighting over a bone. Listen to me. I don’t know if that girl’s telling the truth, but I do know what our people have always done—we protect first, decide later. The elders will handle this. You two stay out of it.”
Paul muttered something under his breath, probably not very respectful. Jacob exhaled hard through his nose.
Sam’s voice softened slightly.
“I get it, alright? You both saw something in her that doesn’t make sense. But I’m the only one left who remembers what it’s like to feel the pull of the old ways—the spirits. I’ll speak for us. Just… don’t make this worse.”
Aspen’s heart twisted painfully. So that was it. They all thought she was insane or dangerous—or both. The thought stung deeper than she wanted to admit.
She frowned bitterly to herself.
At least Paul and Jacob won’t be interested anymore, she thought. Crazy girls don’t get crushes—they get caution tape.
Her throat tightened, but she refused to cry. Not here. Not where Bayaq might be watching.
She turned on her heel and slipped into the dark, her boots crunching softly against the damp earth. She knew Sam would hear her leaving—of course he would. The man’s senses were practically carved from the wind itself. He’d either come after her himself or send one of the boys. Probably Paul, since he seemed the most stubborn.
But Aspen didn’t care. For the first time in a long time, she wanted to run.
And so she did.
She tore through the trees like a wild thing set loose, her hair whipping behind her, lungs burning from the cold air. The night embraced her—pine and salt and the echo of waves somewhere in the distance. Her sneakers slipped over moss and root, but she didn’t stop. The thrill of chaos—the pure, reckless kind she used to feel as a kid—buzzed through her veins.
She felt alive again. Terrified, yes. But alive.
The forest began to thin, replaced by the sound of surf crashing against rocks. She could smell the ocean now, sharp and infinite. The moonlight shimmered over the tide like liquid glass, and Aspen stumbled onto the sand, laughing breathlessly as she kicked off her shoes.
She waded straight in—jeans and all—the cold shocking her legs, grounding her. The saltwater bit at her skin, but it felt real, more real than anything since she’d arrived.
“You don’t mind, right?” she whispered to the sea, voice trembling but soft. “If I… borrow you a little?”
The waves answered by rolling closer, wrapping around her knees like a cold embrace.
For a brief, fleeting second, the world didn’t flicker. It felt still. Whole.
Then a low rumble of thunder echoed somewhere far off, and the water around her seemed to pulse, as if the ocean itself were breathing with her.
You run well, little flame, came Bayaq’s voice, rippling through the waves. But what you seek cannot be escaped—it must be faced.
Aspen’s lips parted. “Then tell me what to do.”
Not yet. Not until they believe… and not until she comes.
“Meyer?” Aspen whispered.
The wind howled in answer, carrying a whisper that wasn’t quite Bayaq’s, wasn’t quite human either—something colder, smoother, like paper turning in a book.
Jacob could still feel the heat in his face long after Sam dismissed him and Paul. He’d stormed out of Billy’s house and stood near the truck, his fists stuffed deep into his jacket pockets, jaw tight. The rain had just started—a soft mist that clung to his hair and lashes.
He wasn’t sure why Aspen got under his skin so much. Maybe it was the way she looked at things, like she was always halfway between laughing and breaking apart. Maybe it was how she talked—like she knew too much, said too much, and didn’t care if people thought she was weird for it. Or maybe it was that she was different in a way that scared him.
A semi-crush, he admitted silently. Yeah. That was what it was. But it didn’t feel like how he imagined crushing on someone should feel. It wasn’t fun or easy—it was frustrating. Confusing. He wanted to talk to her one second and yell at her the next. He wanted to understand her, but the moment she started talking about “fictional worlds” and “Meyer,” all he could think was that she was tearing at something sacred.
Because underneath it all, Jacob wasn’t just mad. He was afraid.
Afraid of what she said being true. Afraid of what it meant for him. If Aspen was right—if they were just characters in someone’s story—then everything his father had taught him about legacy, destiny, and the tribe’s purpose would unravel. He didn’t want to believe that his whole life could be reduced to words on a page.
Inside, Billy’s voice broke through his thoughts.
“Jacob, come here, son.”
Reluctantly, Jacob stepped back inside, wet footprints marking the floor. Billy’s eyes were calm but heavy with something that looked like knowing.
“You’re angry,” his father said simply. “But anger won’t make the truth any clearer. Sam’s doing what he has to. The elders treat him like an adult because he carries a weight you don’t understand yet. You will—someday—but not tonight.”
Jacob crossed his arms, frowning. “They treat me and Paul like we’re kids. Like we don’t get it. But I do get it. That girl—Aspen—she’s dangerous, Dad. She’s… she’s not normal.”
Billy sighed, the sound deep and tired.
“Maybe not. But that doesn’t make her the enemy. Sometimes the ones who see too much scare us because they remind us how little we truly know.”
Jacob stared down at the floor, guilt pricking at his chest. His dad had a way of doing that—calming him down without trying to win. Just… grounding him.
Still, part of Jacob’s frustration remained. He didn’t like Sam’s tone, the way the man ordered him and Paul around like they were reckless pups. He hated the way the elders spoke in riddles, too, as if he couldn’t handle the truth. He was tired of being told to wait, to listen, to obey.
Outside, thunder rolled.
Billy’s hand brushed against his shoulder.
“Go check on her,” he said quietly. “The girl. Something tells me she’s near the ocean. Just… don’t go there angry.”
Jacob blinked. “You’re serious?”
“I’m always serious.”
So Jacob went.
He followed the faint trail Aspen had left behind—her boot prints half-filled with rainwater, small indentations where she’d stumbled or stopped to breathe. Sometimes, she’d scratched quick marks into the dirt with a stick or her shoe: crooked arrows, small spirals, symbols he didn’t recognize.
They led straight toward the coastline.
When Jacob reached the beach, his breath caught. The sky was bruised purple, the sea restless. There she was—Aspen Milagros Arroyo—knee-deep in the tide, soaked through, hair clinging to her face. She wasn’t crying. She was smiling.
She was chasing after something small and silver in the surf—at first he thought it was a trick of the light, but then he saw it. A tiny turtle hatchling, fighting its way toward the waves. Aspen crouched, cupping her hands around it to shield it from the wind.
“Hey, little guy,” she murmured, her voice soft but full of laughter. “The ocean’s right there. You’re almost home.”
She guided it gently to the water, letting the next wave pull it away into safety. Then she straightened, looking up at the sky with wet, trembling hands.
“Did you see that?” she whispered to the wind. “God? Universe? Bayaq? Whoever’s watching—I helped. You saw that, right?”
Her tone was part prayer, part plea.
Jacob’s heart twisted. She looked so human, so fragile and real in that moment that his anger melted into something else entirely. Awe. Pity. Maybe even the start of understanding.
The ravens circled overhead again, their dark wings sharp against the fading light.
Jacob didn’t mean to walk into the water. His feet just… moved.
The ocean was freezing, biting through his shoes, but it felt right.
Grounding. The same kind of sharp that kept him awake when the world didn’t make sense.
Aspen was a few yards ahead, her hands still half-lifted to the air as if she was waiting for some answer. The waves lapped at her knees, and for a second, Jacob forgot to breathe.
She was talking—softly, but he could hear her.
Not to him.
“You said you’d keep me safe,” Aspen murmured, voice trembling, “but they’re scared, Bayaq. The elders, the Cullens, everyone. They’re scared of me. You like that, don’t you?”
A pause. Wind tangled through her hair like unseen fingers. The sea hissed in reply.
Jacob froze.
He couldn’t hear the second voice, but he could feel it—something older, stranger, crawling beneath her words like a current.
“No, I don’t care if you think it’s funny,” she went on. “I just want them to stop looking at me like I’m cursed. I’m not—”
She stopped, closing her eyes. “Fine. Fine, I’ll listen. But you better keep your promise, you trickster.”
That word—trickster—sent a chill down Jacob’s spine.
He’d grown up hearing stories about such beings, things that were half-friend, half-threat. But this was different. The way Aspen said it—like she knew the thing personally—made him uneasy.
That’s when his heart started hammering again.
Not out of fear, exactly. Not just fear.
He didn’t know if he was more afraid of her, or of how much he felt when he looked at her. The way she looked up at the horizon, the wild defiance in her eyes—it was the kind of pull that made his chest ache. His so-called crush wasn’t harmless anymore; it felt dangerous, magnetic.
And the worst part? It reminded him of faith.
Of the stories Billy used to tell him about wolves and spirits and destinies that chose you before you could choose them.
It terrified him.
He took one more cautious step closer. “Aspen.”
She turned, startled—but when she saw him, her face softened into a small, warm smile. The kind that disarmed him immediately.
“Hey, Jake,” she said, voice steady despite everything. “You came.”
His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He wanted to say something sharp—something to remind her he wasn’t some kid to be smiled at like that—but instead he just nodded.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he managed finally.
“Everyone’s worried sick.”
Aspen tilted her head. “Even you?”
Jacob’s heartbeat stuttered. “Yeah, even me.”
Before he could say anything else, the air split behind them with the growl of a truck engine and the crunch of tires skidding over gravel.
“Of course,” Jacob muttered, teeth gritted.
Paul.
He jumped out of the cab, slamming the door hard enough to echo. His shirt was half unbuttoned, his face still flushed from running.
“Aspen!” he barked, scanning the beach. “Are you insane? I told you to stay put! What the hell are you doing out here—”
The moment was gone.
Jacob’s fists clenched at his sides, and heat rose up his neck. He hated the way Paul said her name, like it belonged to him. He hated the rumors that spread around school—the Halloween date, the way everyone whispered about them like they were some edgy couple.
He hated that Paul was older, cooler, rougher. That people listened when he spoke. That Aspen did too.
Jacob turned away from the water before his temper got the best of him, but Aspen, ever the unpredictable one, just laughed.
“You’re both so dramatic,” she said, shaking her head.
“Come on, you two. Join me.”
They both blinked.
“What?” Paul snapped.
“Grounding,” she said simply, motioning for them to step closer. “You know—breathe, focus, feel the earth, not your rage. Or your bruised egos.”
Jacob wanted to argue. He really did. But there was something about the way she said it—firm but kind, like she was trying to pull both of them back to earth—that made him pause.
Paul scoffed but trudged closer anyway, muttering, “This is stupid.”
Aspen ignored him. She lowered herself to sit in the wet sand, crossing her legs, pressing her palms flat to the ground. Her soaked clothes clung to her like armor, her hair plastered to her face, and yet she looked peaceful.
“Breathe,” she whispered. “Feel the pulse under you. That’s real. That’s what matters. Not what Meyer writes, not what they tell us. Just this.”
Jacob hesitated, then finally sat across from her. For a heartbeat, everything went still—the waves, the gulls, even the cold. He felt something hum beneath his skin. Not the pull of a crush this time, but something deeper. A flicker of power, old and feral, curling in his veins.
His hands twitched. His jaw locked.
He didn’t know it yet, but that was the first spark of the alpha gene stirring—something ancient, awakening in the presence of the trickster’s magic and a girl who refused to follow the script.
Paul looked between them, confused but still annoyed, like he wanted to make a joke but couldn’t quite find one.
And Aspen—she just smiled.
The kind of smile that felt like both a promise and a warning.
Jacob could feel it again — that thrum in his chest, that animal pulse crawling beneath his ribs like it wanted out. Every time Aspen spoke, laughed, or brushed her hand through her hair, that wolf inside him lifted its head, not just in rage now but in something worse: claiming. It was instinct trying to name her as his, though his human mind flinched from it.
The shoreline shimmered pale gold under the dying sun. Paul stood a few feet away, half-shifted still, breathing hard, his expression unreadable. Jacob’s jaw flexed. He could still taste the adrenaline, could still feel the pack trying to sort itself inside his blood. Alpha. Not yet, but soon. The thought terrified him.
Aspen broke the tension first, hands raised in mock surrender.
“So, what now? We start a cult? You two already have the wolf hair and matching mood swings.”
Jacob snorted before he could stop himself. Then a sharp, reluctant bark of laughter escaped Paul. Aspen looked between them, triumphant.
“See? I make angry people laugh. That should be my job title.”
Jacob’s wolf retreated, just slightly. The dominance that had been pressing at his skin like a fever finally loosened its claws. The sound of the ocean rushed in, cool and steady. For a moment, he let himself breathe. He wasn’t the alpha. Not now. Not tonight.
But the feeling didn’t vanish — it simply waited, curling at the back of his mind like a storm on the horizon.
Then, in that hush, Bayaq’s presence stirred again — soft, teasing, old as the forest. Aspen’s eyes went glassy, unfocused for a moment as if she could see something the boys couldn’t. The spirit showed her flashes between the waves: eyes gleaming red in mist, new wolves running wild without names or packs, the land itself shuddering beneath their paws.
“These ones,” the spirit whispered in her mind, voice like wind through cedar, “will not laugh so easily. They will not calm with jokes. When they come, you must remember this peace. You must remember them as they are now.”
Aspen blinked, dazed, looking at Jacob and Paul — two wolves caught between youth and something ancient.
And that’s when the story folds into Paul —
Paul watched her, arms crossed, jaw tight. Aspen wasn’t afraid of him. That was new. Most people flinched around him, even his friends sometimes — because of his temper, because of how fast it could snap.
But Aspen just looked at him, eyes steady, almost pitying. She didn’t buy into the gossip — the “monster” talk, the whispers about him losing control. Maybe that’s why he liked her, though he’d never say it. She treated him like a person, not a problem.
Then there was Jacob. Kid thought he was subtle, but Paul could see it a mile away — the way Jacob’s voice softened when he said her name, the way he hovered too close. It irritated Paul more than he wanted to admit. Maybe because he knew how that story went — a boy trying too hard to be the hero, too young to understand what he was playing with.
Jacob was powerful, sure, but power didn’t make him grown. Paul had scars older than Jacob’s feelings. He could see the crush burning in Jacob’s eyes and it made his stomach twist — part jealousy, part protectiveness, part pure annoyance.
Still, there was something about the three of them together, standing in the salt wind, that made Paul uneasy. Aspen in the middle like a light they both orbited, and behind her… that whisper of something ancient, watching, waiting.
And maybe — though he’d never say it aloud — part of Paul wanted to believe Aspen could calm him too.
Aspen let the laughter fade with the tide. The air was cooling now, the waves licking against their ankles, the last bit of gold slipping off the horizon. The boys were quieter again, each locked in whatever storm lived behind their ribs.
She sighed — not out of weariness, but a sort of quiet ache. They still believe in fate, she thought. In whatever script they were written into. And maybe that was what made them beautiful and tragic at once. Wolves who didn’t realize the cage wasn’t their fur, but the story itself.
Still, she smiled. “If we really are stuck in this mess of a prophecy,” she murmured, “then at least I get to help loosen the bars.”
Bayaq shimmered at the edge of her vision, its presence like warm smoke curling through her thoughts.
Freedom, the spirit echoed. That is what we wanted, remember? To give them a choice before the narrative binds their throats.
Aspen nodded faintly, brushing sand off her jeans. “Yeah. Even if they have crushes like it’s some cosmic law,” she whispered, glancing at Jacob’s half-bashful grin and Paul’s guarded stare. It made her heart hurt a little — not because she didn’t like them, but because she knew it wasn’t fully theirs. Something in this world was tugging strings, tilting hearts toward her like magnets scripted in ink.
“They shouldn’t love me,” she said softly. “Not because they were told to.”
Bayaq’s form wavered beside her, almost grieving. And yet, that is how worlds like this are written. The author’s will bleeds through every heartbeat. The danger is not only for them… it is for us.
Aspen felt it then — the faint vibration beneath her feet, a kind of cosmic hum. The timeline was stirring, gears beginning to click into place. Somewhere, far off, the name Bella Swan was whispering into existence, and with it the machinery of destiny.
Jacob and Paul didn’t feel it yet — but Bayaq did. And Aspen did.
“Once she arrives,” Aspen murmured, “everything starts spinning the way Meyer wanted. Love triangles, heartbreak, tragedy. The wolves stop being boys. The girls stop being free.” She looked out at the water, at the reflected moon that seemed too sharp, too knowing. “We have to move before the ink dries.”
Bayaq’s voice trembled through her mind like wind through trees. Yes. Because if the author’s will settles in fully, even spirits will have no say. And what is fiction then, if it devours the living hearts that believed in it?
Aspen turned back toward Jacob and Paul — two growing young men laughing again, unaware of the gravity beneath the laughter. For a moment, she loved them in her own way. Not the kind the script demanded, but the kind that wanted to save them.
“I’m here,” she whispered to Bayaq. “I’ll help you give them more freedom. Even if it means breaking the fourth wall.”
The spirit smiled in that way only gods and stories could. Then prepare, little light. The author’s shadow grows near.
And in the distance — unseen by all but Bayaq — a girl was buying suitcase was stepping off a bus with her mom, her arrival bending the air around her like a gravitational pull. Not yet- but soon enough.
That’s a perfect pivot into the “aftershock” of Aspen’s confession — the uneasy alliance forming, the tribe trying to stabilize the cracks she’s made in the story’s foundation. Here’s the continuation in that tone — mythic realism blended with tension and warmth:
By the time the fire in Billy’s pit had burned low, the night had already folded itself around La Push in solemn silence. Sam’s voice carried the kind of weight that could cut through even the waves.
They talked for hours — about treaties, spirits, vampires, and this strange girl who claimed to know their futures like they were lines in a paperback. Billy’s tone stayed patient, though the tremor in his hands betrayed him. The Elders whispered between themselves, language half in Quileute and half in prayer.
In the end, they decided three things.
First: the old treaty with the Cullens might need rewriting — not because it had failed, but because their world itself was shifting, and they could not afford to be bound by an author’s script.
Second: Aspen herself would need a treaty too — an agreement of trust, of boundaries between her, the wolves, and the Cullens.
And third: no one, not even the wolves, should provoke or anger Bayaq, whose temper was said to move storms and rewrite time when disrespected.
Sam had written it all down in a tight, blocky scrawl for her — a page of warnings and agreements folded neatly in her hoodie pocket.
“Don’t talk about the wolves outside of the circle,” he’d said. “Don’t test the Cullens, even if you’re trying to protect us. And for the love of everything sacred, Aspen—”
“I know, I know,” she’d cut him off, a smirk tugging at her lip despite the heaviness in the room. “Don’t almost die again. Jacob already yelled at me about that.”
She’d meant it like a joke, but Jacob’s answering look had been soft, almost desperate — like he wanted to keep her tethered to this world by sheer will alone.
“Promise me,” he said, voice low.
“I promise.”
The words hung between them like a fragile thread, one she wasn’t sure she could keep from fraying.
Paul’s old truck rumbled down the forest road, headlights slicing through fog. Aspen sat curled in the passenger seat, her chin resting on her knees, watching the streaks of moonlight flash across the windshield.
He hadn’t said much since they left Billy’s place — just kept one hand steady on the wheel, the other drumming on his thigh to some silent rhythm.
“You’re quiet,” Aspen finally murmured.
“So are you,” Paul replied. “I thought someone who just got their own treaty would be more smug about it.”
She snorted. “I’m exhausted. I’ve been called delusional, holy, and a liability in one evening. Kind of kills the vibe.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Fair.”
They fell back into silence — the good kind, the kind that hummed with possibility. The world outside the windows felt unreal; the trees blurred like brushstrokes.
Inside Aspen’s mind, Bayaq spoke.
He trusts you more than he wants to admit. But the author’s reach grows, Aspen. We must work faster.
Aspen tilted her head slightly toward the window so Paul wouldn’t see her lips move.
“What’s your plan?” she whispered.
The story is trying to rewrite itself around us. You will feel it soon — déjà vu, dreams repeating, conversations playing twice. Meyer’s ink stains everything. We must weave protection — over you, and over those who believe in you.
Aspen’s gaze drifted to Paul — the hard edge of his jaw softened in the glow of the dashboard lights.
“That’s why I’m doing it tonight,” she whispered. “The protection ritual. I want him safe from her. Even if she tries to erase me again.”
She will not erase you. You are an anomaly — an echo that learned to speak back. But the ritual must be perfect. No blood, no fear, only intention.
Paul’s brow furrowed as he glanced sideways. “You good? You look like you’re talking to your imaginary friend again.”
Aspen smiled faintly. “He’s not imaginary. Just... camera-shy.”
He shook his head, but his grin slipped through anyway. “You really are something else.”
The truck turned down the narrow lane leading to Aspen’s house. The world was quieter here — no lights, only the hum of the ocean beyond the cliffs.
They parked in silence, their breath clouding the windows. Paul killed the engine.
“Okay,” Aspen whispered, tightening the note from Sam in her pocket like a talisman. “We’re sneaking in through my window. Try not to wake my mom, or we’ll both die before Meyer even gets a chance.”
Paul smirked. “Lead the way, witch girl.”
And as they stepped into the cool, quiet night, Bayaq murmured one last warning through Aspen’s mind:
Hurry. The author is watching.
Paul grunted quietly as Aspen boosted him up toward her window, her palms pushing against his back while he tried to find footing on the narrow siding.
“You’re sure this is a good idea?” he hissed. “Feels like breaking and entering.”
“It’s called entering my own room,” Aspen whispered sharply. “Now shut up and climb before my stepmom hears us—”
The windowsill creaked. Paul slipped—his boot scraped against the paint—and the dull thud of his shoulder hitting the frame echoed through the night. Aspen barely muffled her gasp as she tugged him inside by the sleeve.
Down the hallway, Trish stirred.
She’d only just fallen asleep when the faint noise of the window opening drew her attention. She didn’t move right away, just lay there blinking at the ceiling, a smile slowly curling on her lips.
Of course. Aspen Arroyo, sneaking in through her own window like a raccoon.
Trish slid out of bed as quietly as she could, careful not to wake her husband. She padded barefoot toward the kitchen, suppressing a giggle. She’d done worse at that age—or at least, she thought she had. Philadelphia summers, fourteen years old, crashing her brother’s car trying to impress the cool girls who hung out behind the roller rink.
So much for good influence.
From the corner of her eye, Trish saw the faintest light flicker in Aspen’s window — candlelight, she guessed. She sighed, shaking her head with affection.
“Teenagers,” she murmured, smiling softly. “In the morning, we’re definitely having a talk.”
And with that, she poured herself some water, pretending she hadn’t heard a thing.
Inside the bedroom, chaos had a name — Aspen Milagros Arroyo.
Paul stumbled through the window, nearly crashing into the wall before Aspen grabbed him by the hoodie and thumped the back of his head lightly.
“Quiet!” she hissed, eyes wide. “Do you want to wake the entire neighborhood?”
Paul rubbed his head, glaring. “You could’ve just told me to be quiet, psycho.”
“Violence communicates faster.”
He looked around — and froze.
Her room was… something else.
Half of it was an altar of half-burnt candles, crystals scattered like fallen stars, salt circles that looked more like abstract art than structure. The other half was pure teenage rebellion: posters, sketches, messy piles of clothes, books stacked sideways, notebooks spilling out of a backpack that had seen better days.
Paul raised a brow. “So… witchy chaos meets Hot Topic clearance sale?”
Aspen rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “Don’t judge the state of my room. It’s both a sacred space and a work in progress.”
“Looks like a homicide scene with glitter.”
“Shut up,” she said, grinning despite herself. “You’re lucky I like you.”
Aspen began rearranging the items on her floor with practiced hands — clearing a small space, lighting fresh candles, and gesturing for Paul to sit across from her.
“Okay,” she said, voice lowering to something calm and deliberate.
“This isn’t… exactly traditional witchcraft. It’s a protection ritual. A blend of prayer, energy redirection, and intention work. The whole goal is to keep Meyer from rewriting or influencing you.”
Paul’s expression went flat. “Right. The author lady who apparently owns my soul.”
“Yeah,” Aspen said softly. “Her.”
She pointed to a circle drawn in chalk, lines curling inward like a maze.
“First rule — intentions. The ritual listens to energy, not logic. If you’re scared or angry, it can backfire. So you need to focus on what you want to protect — not who you want to fight.”
Paul frowned, folding his arms. “What’s the difference?”
“Faith,” Aspen said simply. “Faith in yourself. In your people. Not in violence.”
He exhaled slowly, visibly restraining his instinct to argue.
“Second rule — no fear. Meyer feeds on that. If she senses you doubting your own reality, she’ll try to rewrite you again. You have to trust what you know is real.”
Paul rubbed the back of his neck, muttering, “You make this sound easy.”
“It’s not,” Aspen admitted, a tired smile tugging at her lips. “But I’m doing it with you.”
She motioned toward the small shelf of candles beside her bed.
“What color do you want for this? It’s your protection ritual, so you pick. White for purity and clarity. Red for courage. Blue for peace. Black for strength and resistance.”
Paul hesitated, eyeing the flickering lights.
“Black,” he said finally. “Seems right.”
Aspen nodded, lighting the black candle with steady hands. The flame flickered strangely — tall and gold, then violet at the edges.
“Okay,” she murmured. “Let’s begin.”
Paul sat cross-legged on the rug, knees bumping the edge of Aspen’s chalk circle. He wasn’t used to being asked what he believed in; most of the time belief in La Push came with the stories the elders told and the things he’d already seen with his own eyes.
Aspen settled across from him, hands on her knees. The candles painted her face in gold.
“Before we start,” she said, “you have to tell me what you believe in. Spiritually. Religion, teachings, anything you were raised with. The ritual has to honor both of us, or it doesn’t hold.”
Paul exhaled, scratching at the scar near his knuckle. “Guess I was raised on stories, not sermons. My mom lit sage when someone got sick. My grandma said the smoke carries prayers to the Creator. She called Him K’wati sometimes—the Transformer. My dad wasn’t around much, but he used to say everything in the woods listens if you talk the right way. I believe that part.”
Aspen smiled softly. “So you believe in listening back.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Don’t need a church for that.”
She nodded. “Good. That’s all I need to know.”
She reached behind her, pulling out a small pouch of sea salt, a small wooden cross she’d carried since childhood, and a bundle of cedar she’d wrapped with red thread.
“I was born Pentecostal,” she said quietly. “We were taught to pray out loud, to claim protection in Jesus’ name. I still do, even if the rest of me’s changed. So tonight I’ll honor Him—and we’ll honor your people too. Out of respect. Out of balance.”
Paul’s eyes softened, his posture losing its defensive edge.
Aspen drew two intersecting circles in salt, the lines forming a vesica shape between them. She placed her cross in her half, and slid the cedar bundle to his.
“Two paths, one intention,” she said. “Now, we ask your ancestors to stand for you, my God to stand for me, and the land to hear both.”
The candles flickered once, as if answering. A pulse moved through the air—slow, like a heartbeat.
“Creator, Christ, ancestors, and earth,” Aspen began, voice trembling but clear, “guard Paul Lahote. Let no hand of false creation take him. Let his soul remain his own. Let his anger be tempered by purpose, not control.”
The flame of the black candle turned indigo. Smoke spiraled upward, forming the faint shape of a raven’s wing before vanishing.
Paul felt a low vibration under his palms. The scent of cedar filled his chest; behind his eyes, flashes of memory flickered: his grandmother’s hands braiding his hair, Sam’s voice calling him brother, the shimmer of ocean light against the cliffs. Each image felt solid, anchored, like proof of a life that could not be written away.
But then the pressure hit—an invisible pull, cold and slick—Meyer’s narrative trying to reclaim him. Words that weren’t his own brushed the edge of his mind: You are angry. You are dangerous. You belong to her story.
Paul’s breath hitched. “She’s here,” he rasped.
Aspen didn’t flinch. She gripped his hands tighter. “Then we finish it. Focus on what’s real.”
She began to pray in a rhythm that almost became song, alternating between English and soft Spanish phrases she remembered from childhood. “En el nombre del Padre… y de la tierra que te hizo… and of the ancestors who still walk with you.”
Paul shut his eyes, pushing back against the whisper in his skull. He saw Meyer’s words dissolving, letters burning to ash. His heartbeat synced with the flicker of the candlelight.
The room brightened for a single moment, as if dawn had broken inside the walls. The salt circles glowed faintly; the cedar smoldered without flame, releasing a plume of smoke that curled upward, forming the silhouette of a raven perched above them.
Aspen looked up, breathless. “Bayaq,” she whispered.
The smoke figure tilted its head once, then burst apart, scattering like dark feathers. The air settled—heavy but calm.
Paul opened his eyes. The pressure was gone. The world was still.
He realized Aspen was still holding his hands, her pulse racing beneath her skin.
“What’d you do?” he murmured.
“Reminded the universe you’re not anyone’s character,” she said, voice shaky but certain. “You’re your own.”
He let out a slow, disbelieving laugh. “You and your rituals.”
She smiled, exhaustion softening her eyes. “Yeah. But it worked.”
The last candle guttered out, leaving only the scent of cedar and salt in the air, and a strange, new quiet that felt like freedom.
Paul’s brows knit. “Me? You want me to pray?”
Aspen nodded, still smiling, candlelight catching the salt dust on her cheeks. “Yeah. Your turn. You have to pray for us now. Not just you—both of us. The universe listens better when it hears two voices.”
Paul looked at their joined hands, rough against her smaller ones, and tried to think of what prayer even meant when you’d just fought off an invisible author who could bend reality. But something in her eyes—hopeful, fierce, tired—made him want to try.
He cleared his throat. “All right. Uh… Creator, ancestors, whoever’s up there that still gives a damn about the Quileute, about her too—keep us steady. Keep her safe. Keep me from losing my head when everything starts getting weird again.”
Aspen bit back a laugh, whispering, “You already lost it a while ago.”
He shot her a crooked grin and went on. “Let whatever’s trying to write us out remember we’ve got names, families, history. Let this girl stop thinking she has to fix everything alone. And if you’re listening, God, Raven, Bayaq—whichever of you is running the show—don’t let her get hurt for helping me.”
The words felt clumsy, but real. The candle nearest to him flared tall and clear, and for a heartbeat the air shimmered, soft as a breath. Aspen’s shoulders loosened, the invisible weight that always pressed on her easing just a little.
She whispered, “I think it worked.”
Paul didn’t answer right away. He just looked at her—really looked—and felt that strange sense of awareness she’d hoped for flicker awake behind his ribs. The kind that said you’re not a pawn anymore.
Aspen let out a shaky laugh. “Okay, maybe you’re protected now. Maybe both of us are. Maybe we just bought a little freedom.”
Paul leaned back, exhaling through his nose. “Then we use it. Whatever’s coming—wolves, vampires, some crazy author lady—you’re not dealing with it by yourself.”
Her smile softened. “Deal. But you still have to believe it’ll work.”
He shrugged, voice low. “Guess I do. For once.”
The last candle sputtered out. The room was dark except for the moonlight sneaking through the curtains—quiet, almost peaceful.
Aspen thought, maybe faith doesn’t need to be perfect. Maybe it just needs two people choosing to keep it.
Aspen carefully snuffed out the last of the candles, the smoke curling in gentle tendrils like fading whispers. The room smelled of sandalwood, wax, and tension — something holy yet fragile. Her fingers trembled slightly as she straightened the small altar she’d made, half-protection charm, half-rebellion.
“Okay,” she exhaled softly, her voice barely more than a sigh. “It’s done.”
Paul sat cross-legged on the floor, still blinking like he was halfway between two worlds. The candlelight caught in his eyes — wolf-gold but flickering, confused, emotional. For once, he looked less like the hot-headed pack warrior and more like someone’s son, someone trying to hold on.
Aspen smiled, the exhaustion in her face softening into affection. “You can stay the night,” she murmured, brushing dust off her pajama pants. “You can take the bed, or the floor if that makes you more comfortable. It’s too late to drive now anyway.”
But inside, she knew the truth — she didn’t want him to leave. It wasn’t romance; it was instinct. The same feeling she got when babysitting her little cousins — that irrational need to make sure the child was breathing, that no shadows reached them in their sleep. Only now, the shadow was Meyer’s influence, and the “child” was a six-foot-something werewolf who looked like he could wrestle thunder.
Paul rubbed the back of his neck, awkward, like he’d just been caught doing something soft. “Uh… I don’t really crash at people’s houses,” he muttered. “Especially girls’ rooms.”
Aspen tilted her head, a teasing grin tugging at her lips. “You just helped me pray for your soul, I think we’re past worrying about curfews and chaperones, Lahote.”
That pulled a rare laugh out of him — low, real, almost startled. He looked around her room again: the chaos of books, the crystal collection, the floral bedsheets. “You know,” he said, smirking faintly, “you might actually be weirder than the Cullens.”
“Good,” Aspen said simply. “Then I’m doing something right.”
He hesitated a moment before finally sitting on the edge of her bed, eyes softening. “Thanks. For… this. I don’t really know what I believe in, but—”
“—but it felt real,” Aspen finished for him.
“Yeah,” Paul said quietly. “It felt like… something was listening.”
As Aspen turned to check the candles again, she didn’t see how his expression shifted — the faint peace on his face mixed with something rawer, something that looked almost like hope.
In the dark woods outside Forks, the Cullens were moving swift and silent through the trees. It was supposed to be a routine hunt — deer, maybe a cougar if Emmett got lucky.
But Edward froze mid-step. His head snapped toward the Lahote residence, eyes narrowing. “That girl…” he murmured. “Aspen. She’s… praying?” His voice lilted uncertainly, like he couldn’t quite categorize what he was sensing. “No — not just praying. She’s… binding something.”
Carlisle slowed, watching his son’s expression. “Binding?” he echoed softly.
“It’s protective,” Edward said, brow furrowed. “But it’s not quite… holy. Or unholy. It’s just… old. Very old.”
Emmett grinned, fangs catching moonlight. “Or maybe she’s just finally breaking curfew,” he teased, nudging his brother. “What, you think she’s in there doing witchcraft with a wolf boy?”
Edward shot him a look that could cut marble. “That wolf boy has been tampered with by something that shouldn’t exist. And that human girl might be the only one who noticed.”
Before Carlisle could respond, Alice appeared beside them in a flutter of movement — her tone lighter, but her face serious. “Don’t panic, Ed,” she said softly. “I saw them. She’s not doing anything wrong.” Then, mischievously, she added, “Though I did think about scaring them — just for fun.”
“Don’t,” Edward said firmly, though a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “He’s had enough nightmares for one night.”
Alice tilted her head, her gaze turning distant — thoughtful. “Still,” she whispered, “whatever she did in there… it worked. Meyer’s grip on him just flickered.”
Carlisle looked toward the faint lights in Aspen’s window, his golden eyes soft with respect.
“Then maybe,” he said quietly, “she’s not meddling in darkness at all. Maybe she’s bringing him back into the light — in her own way.”
And with that, the Cullens turned back toward the forest — the scent of pine and prayer still lingering in the night.
Paul woke up to the faint scent of wax and smoke. His body ached like he’d been hit by a storm, but it wasn’t the usual kind — not the kind that came from growing up, fighting, or running through the forest until his lungs burned. This was different. Heavy. Clean. His head felt clearer than it had in months, like someone had peeled away the static he hadn’t even realized was always there.
For a second, he forgot where he was. Then his eyes cracked open to see a mess of soft pink light filtering through lace curtains, and a trail of melted candles on the dresser. Aspen’s room.
She was asleep at her desk, head resting on an open notebook, her hand still clutching a half-burned sage stick.
Paul sat up slowly, muscles protesting. He blinked — and for the first time in what felt like forever, his thoughts didn’t come with Meyer’s voice slithering through them. No whispers. No pull. Just… quiet.
He looked at Aspen again. Something in his chest twisted — gratitude, confusion, something warmer he didn’t want to name. “You really did it,” he muttered under his breath.
Then — the bedroom door flew open.
“What in God’s name—”
Trish’s voice sliced through the peace like a blade. She stood there in a robe, hair wild, eyes wide in horror. “Aspen Milagros Arroyo!”
Aspen jolted awake, nearly falling out of her chair. “Mom— I mean, Trish, wait, it’s not what you think—”
But Trish’s voice was already climbing in pitch. “You brought a boy into this house? Into your room? At this hour?!”
Paul blinked, still half in the fog of sleep, half in a daze of spiritual hangover. “Uh… morning?” he managed.
“Don’t you morning me!” Trish snapped, rounding on him like he was caught robbing the place. “Out! Out of this house right now! I don’t care whose son you are, I will not have some— some delinquent boy sneaking through my daughter’s window!”
Aspen’s jaw dropped. “He didn’t sneak in— okay, well, technically he did, but it wasn’t like that!”
“Don’t you dare defend him!” Trish’s voice cracked. “You’re sixteen, Aspen! I should have known— Pentecostal households don’t raise girls to— to do this sort of—”
Paul stood up too fast, trying to look less like a criminal and more like someone who could explain. “Ma’am, nothing happened. I swear—”
“Don’t swear!” Trish snapped. “Not in my house! You think I was born yesterday?!”
At that point Aspen’s confusion boiled over into pure fury. “Trish! For the love of God— he was cursed! I was helping him!”
“Helping him?” Trish scoffed. “That’s what they’re calling it now?”
That was it. Aspen grabbed the nearest book — The Witch’s Almanac, 2004 Edition — and threw it at her stepmother.
The thud echoed through the entire house.
“Get out of my room!” Aspen shouted, cheeks flushed red, eyes glinting with both tears and fire. “You don’t know anything about me or what I do!”
Trish stumbled back, clutching her chest. “Aspen Milagros—!”
“Don’t!” Aspen hissed. “Don’t act like I sinned just because I did something you don’t understand!”
From the hallway came the sound of heavy footsteps — her father, bleary and alarmed. Aspen spun around, panic flashing across her face. “Paul — window, now!”
Paul hesitated, torn between defending her and not making things worse.
“Go!” she hissed again, shoving his jacket into his hands.
He nodded once, grimly, then swung himself halfway out the window — only to hear her voice one more time behind him, low and shaking. “Thank you… for letting me try.”
Then he was gone — disappearing into the cold predawn air of November 8th, 2004.
Elsewhere in La Plush, chaos was traveling faster than sound.
Sam groaned awake in his childhood bedroom, rolling over like someone had just dumped a stereo on full volume into his head. “Oh, for the love of— Paul, what the hell did you do now?”
He pressed a hand to his temple, grimacing as he heard the muffled echo of Trish shouting, Aspen screaming back, and a very distinct thud that sounded suspiciously like a hardcover colliding with a skull.
“Did that witch just throw a book at her mom?” he muttered.
“Impressive.”
Across the forest, in the Cullen house, Jasper flinched mid-chess move, hand hovering over a pawn.
“...What was that?” he murmured.
Edward didn’t even look up from the board, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “Aspen’s mother found Paul in her room.”
Jasper blinked. “Oh.” Then, with a grin, “Oh.”
Emmett, from the sofa, burst out laughing loud enough to shake the walls. “No way! The wolf got caught? Dude, that’s rich.”
Alice skipped into the room, already giggling. “He didn’t even do anything wrong! She’s throwing books at her mom — I love her.”
“Technically,” Edward said dryly, “she’s throwing occult literature at her Pentecostal stepmother while protecting a possible werewolf from an ancient psychic parasite.”
Emmett slapped his knee. “Even better!”
Jasper shook his head, leaning back. “You know,” he said, half-smirking, “for a human, that girl’s got bite. I like her spirit.”
“Spirit isn’t what I’d call it,” Edward muttered, though his tone softened. “It’s faith. Wild, misdirected, but… strong. Strong enough to challenge something even we can’t quite see.”
Jasper leaned forward again, grinning. “Still think we shouldn’t place bets on whether Paul gets grounded or exorcised first?”
Edward gave him a long, unimpressed look. “Checkmate.”
Jasper glanced down. “...Well played.”
The storm that followed Paul’s escape out the window was nothing short of biblical.
Aspen sat at the kitchen table, the old yellow phone cord twisted and knotted around her fingers, the receiver pressed between her cheek and shoulder. Her other hand fidgeted with a chipped mug of coffee she wasn’t allowed to drink but poured for herself out of defiance.
Across from her, Trish sat with an ice pack pressed to the side of her face, lips pursed tight. She wasn’t speaking — which was somehow worse than yelling. The silence was thick, heavy, sanctimonious.
Aspen’s father paced behind them like a stormcloud in motion, muttering prayers under his breath between bursts of Spanish scolding.
“—Y el nombre del muchacho, Aspen. Dime su nombre,” he barked.
“The boy who was in your room. Who is he?”
Aspen’s jaw clenched. “He’s just— a friend. From school.”
“A friend doesn’t sleep in your room!” her father snapped, slamming his hand against the counter hard enough to rattle the saltshaker.
“I don’t care what kind of magic or ‘ritual’ you were doing! You embarrassed us! What will the neighbors think? What will the church think?”
Aspen’s lip trembled, but she didn’t cry. She hadn’t since she was twelve, since the last time he’d told her she wasn’t living right with God.
Trish sighed deeply, not meeting her eyes. “You’re going to call your mother,” she said flatly. “Right now. She needs to know what you’ve been doing here.”
So Aspen did.
She punched in the long Texas number with shaking fingers, wrapping the phone cord tighter around her wrist like a tether. It rang three times before a familiar, honey-smooth Southern drawl answered.
“Hola? Paz speaking—”
“Hi, Mom.” Aspen’s voice cracked a little.
There was a pause — long enough for Trish to look up expectantly.
“Aspen? Sweetheart? It’s been months. What’s— what’s going on?”
Aspen stared down at her chipped nail polish. “They want me to tell you I… let a boy sleep over.”
There was a silence so sharp it hummed.
Paz sighed, heavy and slow. “Oh, mija… no, no. That’s not— that’s not how I raised you.”
Aspen felt something crumble inside her chest. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she whispered. “I was helping him.”
“Helping him do what, Aspen? Sin?” Paz’s voice cracked like dry wood. “You always been different — too curious for your own good. I prayed it was just a phase.”
“Mom,” Aspen said quietly, twisting the cord. “You and Meyer would’ve gotten along.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Her father slammed his palm on the counter again. “Tell her you’re sorry!”
“I am sorry!” Aspen shouted suddenly, tears welling in her eyes now. “I’m sorry I’m not perfect! I’m sorry I’m not the good Pentecostal girl you wanted! I’m sorry I can see things you can’t explain!”
Trish flinched. Paz was silent on the other end. Her father crossed himself under his breath.
And just like that, Aspen realized something awful — that Meyer’s voice, the narrative that haunted her world, had somehow reached into hers, molding her parents into the very caricatures that would break her spirit for the sake of the story.
She hung up the phone, trembling. “I’m not marrying anyone,” she whispered, more to herself than to them. “Not because you said so, not because Meyer wrote it that way.”
Her father blinked, confused. “Who’s Meyer?”
Aspen didn’t answer. She stood up, pushed her chair back, and walked out before anyone could stop her.
The morning felt like walking into a courtroom.
When Paul pulled up to the reservation’s high school parking lot, the entire lot seemed to turn its head.
He could feel the whispers — the low murmurs between lockers, the side glances from teachers pretending not to care. Everyone had already heard.
Because of course they had. His mom’s voice could’ve been heard three blocks over when she’d woken up to find him stumbling through the front door at 3 a.m. smelling like incense and wax.
“You’re grounded ‘til Jesus comes back!” she’d shouted. “I can’t believe you snuck out for some girl! Are you out of your mind, Paul?!”
It only got worse when she stormed out to the porch and the neighbors came out too — old Mrs. Clearwater peering over her fence, one of the Lahote cousins whispering under his breath, “He’s the one with the witch girl.”
Now, at school, it was the same. Eyes followed him like flies to honey — curious, judgmental, amused.
And there, standing by the wall, were Sam Uley and Jacob Black.
Sam had his arms crossed, expression unreadable but faintly impressed — like he couldn’t decide whether to pat Paul on the back or write his obituary.
Jacob, though… Jacob looked like he wanted to rip Paul’s throat out.
Paul froze mid-step. “Oh, great,” he muttered.
Sam raised a brow. “Rough morning?”
Paul snorted. “You could say that. I think half the rez thinks I—” he rubbed the back of his neck, grimacing. “—you know. With Aspen.”
Jacob’s nostrils flared. “Did you?”
Paul’s smirk faded. “No. She just— she was helping me. That’s it.”
Sam’s mouth twitched, just slightly. “Helping you sneak into her room at three in the morning?”
“It’s not like that, man,” Paul said quickly, a rare hint of sincerity cutting through his tone. “She did something — like, a ritual or whatever. I felt… different after. Better.”
Jacob’s jaw clenched. “Better?”
“Yeah.” Paul met his eyes evenly. “Like someone stopped whispering in my head for the first time in years.”
That made Sam’s expression darken with thought. He’d heard about Meyer from Aspen — about the narrative that could twist their lives like puppet strings. Maybe… maybe she wasn’t crazy after all.
Jacob, though, wasn’t ready to hear that. His hands balled into fists, knuckles whitening. “She’s dangerous,” he muttered. “You don’t see it.”
Paul smirked again, mostly to cover the fact that Jacob’s jealousy was obvious. “You sure that’s what you’re mad about, pup?”
Jacob’s glare could’ve cut glass.
Sam stepped between them, sighing. “Not today. We’ve got enough drama without a wolf fight on school grounds. I mean- a boy fight.”
Paul took a step back, grinning despite himself. “Yeah, yeah. I’m chill. Just saying— maybe you should give the witch a little credit. She’s tougher than she looks.”
He started toward the building, the stares following him still — but this time, instead of shame, something steadier burned in his chest.
Whatever happened last night had changed him. He didn’t know how or why — but he knew Aspen had something to do with it.
And maybe, just maybe, the story wasn’t as written as Meyer wanted it to be.
By third period, Paul could tell the entire Quileute reservation was buzzing like someone had kicked a hornet’s nest full of gossip.
Everywhere he walked, whispers followed him down the hallway —
“That’s him— the one with the witch.”
“They say she made him drink blood under the full moon.”
“No, she hexed him! That’s why his eyes look different now.”
It was ridiculous, but the energy was electric, almost fearful. Paul could feel it humming beneath the surface of everything — the stories morphing faster than wildfire.
By lunch, even the teachers were giving him strange looks. Coach Clapp muttered something about respecting the ancestors when Paul walked past, while one of the elders from the cultural center quietly said to another:
“If there’s a witch among the young ones, we must know whether she walks in light or shadow.”
Paul sat at his usual table, stabbing his fries with more force than necessary. Jacob sat across from him, eyes narrowed. Sam had joined them too — rare, since he usually ate off campus during shifts. His jaw was tight, his expression unreadable.
“You’ve heard it, haven’t you?” Jacob said finally, voice low.
“Everyone’s saying she’s some kind of— of curse.”
Paul threw down his fork. “She’s not a curse. She’s a girl, dude. You all act like she showed up chanting Latin and summoning demons.”
“Maybe she did,” Jacob muttered, bitterness creeping in. “You’d defend her anyway.”
Sam groaned. “Enough. Both of you.”
They turned toward him, startled by the steel in his voice.
“Whatever Aspen is — witch, guide, anomaly — it’s not your business to turn her into a competition.” Sam looked between them with the patience of someone already exhausted by their nonsense. “You two need to stop circling her like dogs.”
Paul’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. Not pulling punches today, huh?”
“I mean it,” Sam said firmly. “If this… power around her is real, then we treat it with respect. Not jealousy.”
Jacob frowned but stayed silent.
Sam continued, lowering his voice. “Elders are already talking about it. They say if she’s tied to the old spirits — to Bayaq — then she’s part of something sacred. But if she’s tied to the other force…”
“Meyer,” Paul said quietly.
Sam nodded grimly. “Then she’s danger walking. And the wolves — the ones who’ll come later — they’ll be drawn straight to her whether they want to be or not.”
Paul blinked. “The wolves who’ll come later?”
Sam sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just… pray you’re not one of them.”
Paul laughed softly, but there was something uneasy in the sound.
“You think I’d be bad at it?”
“I think,” Sam said, looking him dead in the eye, “you’d be a nightmare to lead.”
Aspen & Trish – November 8th, 2004, evening
Aspen didn’t even make it through the school day without crying.
She’d tried — really tried — but between the whispers, the rumors, and the half-smirks from classmates, it was too much.
By fourth period, she slipped out the side doors, shoulders shaking, her face blotchy red.
Jessica Stanley — bless her loud, dramatic heart — had already started a crusade by lunchtime to shut the gossip down.
“Okay, no one is pregnant!” Jessica shouted in the cafeteria earlier.
“Aspen and Paul didn’t do anything, you perverts! You all act like you’ve never watched a movie where a girl and guy hang out without— you know— sinning!”
Even Lauren Mallory, of all people, had rolled her eyes and added,
“Seriously, let the girl breathe. It’s 2004, not 1954.”
It helped a little. But not enough.
So, when Aspen came home early, her mascara smeared and her backpack half open, Trish found her sitting on the kitchen floor — shoulders shaking, cheeks wet.
Trish crouched down slowly. “Hey… hey, what happened, honey?”
Aspen wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater. “Everyone thinks I’m—with child or something!” she hiccupped. “They said it’s Paul’s, and now everyone’s calling me a witch-slut and—”
Trish blinked, shocked, and then — surprisingly — didn’t scold. She just sighed and pulled Aspen into a hug.
“Oh, sweetheart… teenagers can be cruel. But you know rumors don’t make truth.”
Aspen sniffled, her voice muffled in Trish’s shoulder. “It’s not fair. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know,” Trish said softly, rubbing her back. “But we’re going to fix this, alright? Maybe we’ll meet with Paul’s family in a couple weeks. Clear the air. Make things right between households.”
Aspen nodded weakly. “Okay.”
There was a pause, then Trish hesitated before asking, almost delicately:
“…Aspen, what do you actually know about sex?”
Aspen blinked through tears, caught completely off guard. “…Um.”
Trish waited patiently.
“Well…” Aspen said slowly, eyes darting to the floor. “When I was sixteen — in my real life — I thought people made babies like slugs.”
Trish blinked. “Like… slugs.”
“Yeah,” Aspen sniffled, nodding earnestly. “Or they just… swam under the moonlight until God blessed them with a baby. That’s how I thought it worked.”
Trish pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. “Oh, sweet mercy.”
Aspen frowned. “What? It made sense! Slugs do that!”
Trish shook her head, chuckling despite herself, the ice between them slowly melting. “Okay, slug girl,” she said gently. “Maybe… we’ll have a proper talk soon. But not right now. Right now, you need soup and a nap.”
Aspen smiled faintly, wiping her nose. “You’re not mad anymore?”
Trish hesitated. “I’m… still confused. But I believe you when you say nothing happened. And I think—” her voice softened, “—maybe I overreacted. You’re not a bad kid, Aspen. You’re just… different.”
“Differing’s not a sin,” Aspen said quietly.
“No,” Trish agreed, smiling sadly. “It’s not.”
That night, as Aspen lay in bed staring at the ceiling, she heard the faint whisper of Bayaq again — like the rustle of leaves in her mind:
The path is hard, my child, but hearts are softening. Even in anger, the story can be rewritten.
Aspen exhaled shakily, pulling her blanket closer.
Maybe, just maybe, she was starting to make the impossible a little more human.
Paul didn’t even get his shoes off before his mother’s voice hit him like a slap.
“Paul Lahote, did you use protection?”
The Sprite can in his hand fizzed violently, slipping from his fingers and spilling all over the living room floor. His stomach dropped.
“M–Mom—what the hell kind of question is that?!” he barked, grabbing a handful of napkins from the counter while his grandmother snorted from her armchair.
“Language,” she muttered, though the corner of her mouth twitched in amusement.
His mother didn’t budge. “Don’t play dumb with me. The elders came to my mother’s house today talking about you and some witch girl—and by dinnertime, everyone from the rez to Forks High thinks you’ve been—” she lowered her voice, “—rolling in the sheets with her!”
Paul groaned, dragging his hands down his face. “Oh my god. Mom, nothing happened! I slept on the floor! Aspen’s—she’s not like that, and neither am I!”
His grandmother finally looked up from her crochet project, eyes sharp but kind. “He’s telling the truth. He’s got that look—that kind that says he’s mortified, not smug. His father, rest his restless spirit, always looked proud after trouble. This one looks sick to his stomach.”
“Yeah, because I am!” Paul snapped, half-defensive, half-panicked. “I didn’t even—she just said it was late and I could crash there. Trish—her stepmom—freaked out and kicked me out in the middle of the night like I was some criminal!”
His mother sighed, the edge of anger softening into worry. “You’re still my boy, but you’ve got to understand how it looks. You’re almost sixteen, Paul. She’s what—seventeen? You can’t be staying in girls’ rooms, even if all you do is pray with them.”
That word—pray—made his grandmother tilt her head. “So she is a witch?”
Paul blinked. “No! She’s not—she’s… I dunno, spiritual? Weird? But not evil.” He exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck. “She helped me feel… less trapped. Like I could breathe without wanting to punch something.”
That was what silenced the room. His grandmother set her yarn down slowly. “Then she may be more blessing than curse, hm?”
His mother gave a tight nod, finally sitting beside him. “You’ve always been a good boy, Paul. Hotheaded, sure—but not cruel. If you’re saying you didn’t hurt her, I believe you.”
He met her eyes, the tension in his shoulders easing. “I’d never. Ever.”
“Then maybe that’s what the elders need to hear,” she said softly. “That a young man can spend a night with a girl and not ruin her—or himself.”
Paul huffed out a breath, managing a half-smile. “Good luck convincing them.”
Meanwhile… at the Cullens’ house
Alice held the letter between her fingertips like it was a secret treasure.
“Are you sure about this?” she whispered.
Jasper smirked, his drawl low and steady. “I don’t see another way. She’s different, Alice. She feels… human. I need to understand that again.”
Alice grinned and hopped onto the window ledge of Aspen’s room, giggling as the night breeze rustled her hair. “Fine, fine. But you owe me an afternoon of dress shopping for playing courier.”
“Deal.” Jasper handed her the folded paper.
Inside the letter, his slanted script read:
Miss Aspen,
I reckon this is unconventional, but you seem to have a knack for breaking rules kindly. I wanted to ask how you stay so human among the unnatural. You’ve got something most of us forgot—faith, maybe, or foolish hope. Either way, I’d like to learn it.
Also, if you’re all right after last night’s… chaos, I’d appreciate knowing so before the whole coven loses its collective mind.
Your unlikely ally,
—Jasper Whitlock Hale.
Alice giggled quietly as she slid the note through the crack of Aspen’s bedroom window, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Humanity lessons from a witch—how poetic.”
Jasper, leaning against the trees below, allowed a rare smile. “Or how necessary,” he murmured.
Notes:
See I made Aspen a "slut" lol of some sorts!
Paul can't fight the rumors he is a ladies' man!
Jacob wants Paul die before the love triangle to love square happens!
Meyer is like I have to have my romance trope now or later!
Aspen like ew- I am going eat dirt and play with the doggies! Meyer is like you are worst fucking thing to happened to my series!
Aspen on all fours barking at trees and trying run after a human Jacob Black who regrets slut shaming her in the future!
I fucked up the timeline it's like November 8th, 2004, now because I say so not the 1st because that too much drama for the first day of the month.
Most imprints will not end up how you like them- some of them will never be romance ever- ever- I forbid it!
Other relationships will be alive like Alice and Jasper mostly
Edward and Bella might happen, but it will struggle mostly because Aspen will be the main factor she doesn't fucking let it happen- as 26-year-old I will make my self-interest be like uhhh let's not groom the minor Eddie? Like uh- you like 115 years old right? Your brain froze up, let's mature before your um make this girl your victim?
I mean true love! Aspen is gonna be rude about it though- and be like Bella uh- I am dating him (Aspen fucking dates Edward for while torture him and break him before Bella gets her love story of sorts)
Aspen with a hammer- Eddie- it's our date night! I need your head for a bit!
That might the direction I am head to because it's fun for me just imagine Aspen making Edward long for Bella more as Aspen is like you suck, I hate you, and I don't like you stop trying hold my hand! I don't care we are dating! EWWWWW!
Meyer is like please trying to kill Edward?! Aspen like nah bro! You started it!
Chapter 7: Onwards in Oddities!
Summary:
I MADE ANOTHER PLAYLIST FOR ONE MY FANFICS
AHAHFHA
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1xLR0GBzdyzROe5rS6cevG?si=0qfCWAFqQXmfzIFhyRFKdQ&pi=8byV5_aCRtuIl
i WILL UPDATE MORE BUT i AM TIRED BROS
Notes:
On a personal note, I realized I have been trying to force myself be in love with men- like males, you know?
But what if my love doesn't need a male role model more like maybe I should love someone how they are in each stage of our lives, I think I am less afraid to say I am ready to be more open about my bisexuality even if means cutting ties to old versions of myself, getting be alone without a family, and without a home with a dog.
I think I need to try being less worried but more myself!
I don't understand human emotions at times, but sometimes I look at women, I go to be in her hold of vision is divine and I understand why some men went to war for women like you back in the day.
Nations can fall, but my lady, I am by your side by the end of days not as your husband, not as your lover, nor ever distrusted for that rots your heart!
I am just your fallen warrior, a devotee to see you smile and safe, and most all one by your side!
Ever to be your friend hopefully, but in your grace please, please be it so.
Fuck, I am so stupid and bad at telling if I like someone or want them in general!
I am cursed to be this little stupid clown, and God laughs at that for fun!
I am just little stupid clown that goes oh no fuck it I guess so often it's a signature!
Chapter Text
That morning, Aspen felt like her skin didn’t fit right—like she’d been stitched back into someone else’s story. Her eyes still burned from crying, and her voice was raw from yelling. Her stepmother, Trish, had already left early for work, leaving behind an eerie quiet.
When Aspen went to make her bed, she noticed the corner of her window lifted just slightly. A folded piece of paper had been slid through the crack, its edges crisp and deliberate. She froze.
It wasn’t Trish’s doing—Trish didn’t even like her room open. Aspen unfolded the paper and recognized the handwriting almost instantly: sharp and elegant, like something from another century.
Miss Aspen,
I reckon this is unconventional, but you seem to have a knack for breaking rules kindly. I wanted to ask how you stay so human among the unnatural.
You’ve got something most of us forgot—faith, maybe, or foolish hope. Either way, I’d like to learn it.
Also, if you’re all right after last night’s… chaos, I’d appreciate knowing so before the whole coven loses its collective mind.
—Jasper Whitlock Hale
Her thumb brushed over the ink, smudging a corner slightly. Aspen blinked, unsure whether to laugh or cry. The night before, she’d been accused of everything short of summoning Satan himself—and now, one of the supposed “monsters” was asking her how to stay human.
That’s when it hit her.
Maybe the story was shifting. Maybe Meyer’s strings were loosening, and the characters were breathing without permission. Maybe they were choosing her—this messy, imperfect girl who didn’t belong—to be something different than what they were written to be.
For the first time in what felt like ages, Aspen smiled. A small, real one.
She pulled out a pink envelope from her desk (one of her old stationery sets from before she “died” into this universe) and wrote back quickly, hand trembling with a strange hope. She thanked Jasper for his kindness and wrote that she believed even monsters could find light, especially if they looked for it in unlikely places.
And because she was feeling bold, she tucked something extra for Alice too—a tiny heart-shaped jar she’d filled with the dried body of a honeybee she’d found weeks ago. Aspen labeled it “Proof even sweetness has an afterlife.”
She sealed both the jar and her letter in her backpack. Maybe today would be a better day.
Edward’s POV — November 9th, 2004, Tuesday
Edward Cullen was already exhausted.
He’d barely parked the Volvo before the noise of Forks High’s collective consciousness came crashing in like static—mundane thoughts, caffeine-deprived anxieties, and the ever-repeating loop of teenage dramatics. It was suffocating.
She said she likes my hoodie.
I think I left my algebra homework on the bus.
Is that Edward Cullen? Why does he look so mad all the time—
He tuned them out, fingers drumming against the steering wheel, half-wishing he could pull his own mind out by the roots.
Then a new thought cut through the static like sunlight through fog—foreign, bright, unfiltered by the usual teenage self-absorption.
He wrote me a letter.
Edward’s golden eyes flicked up, scanning the lot until he saw her: Aspen.
She was running—actually running—toward Jasper and Alice. Her outfit was... questionable at best. Fur Ugg boots, plaid tan mini skirt, ripped tights—two polos? The corners of his mouth twitched downward.
Trying too hard, he thought dryly. She’ll be written up before lunch.
But it wasn’t her outfit that made him pause—it was what she carried. A small pink envelope and a glass vial that caught the light.
Edward leaned forward slightly, curiosity prickling at the edges of his restraint. He scanned Jasper’s mind out of reflex—only to be met with warmth and faint amusement.
She actually wrote back.
Alice’s mind buzzed like a glittering kaleidoscope of delight: Ooooh, she included something for me! I told you she liked us!
Edward frowned. What exactly—
He was already across the parking lot before he knew what he was doing. His sudden appearance startled all three. Alice’s grin widened, Jasper’s posture tensed instinctively, and Aspen blinked at him like she hadn’t expected a vampire to materialize between her and her friends before first period.
Edward’s gaze dropped to the envelope in Jasper’s hand—pink, delicate, human—and then to the small glass jar Aspen was now shyly holding out to Alice. Inside, suspended in clear resin, was the curled body of a dead honeybee.
He stared. “You… gifted her a corpse?”
Alice giggled, unbothered. “It’s symbolic, Edward. Don’t be so morbid.”
Aspen’s lips twitched. “It’s about sweetness surviving death.”
Jasper’s emotions rippled like low thunder, steady and calm. “Seems more poetic than macabre to me.”
Edward tilted his head, his skepticism sharp as glass. “Poetic is one word for it. Unsettling is another.”
Still, he couldn’t help but glance again at Aspen—at the faint, bruised sadness still hiding behind her eyes and the awkward, hopeful way she smiled when Jasper thanked her. Something about her didn’t read like a typical teenager.
And, annoyingly, he couldn’t read her mind clearly. It was fuzzy around the edges—like radio static muffling a song.
That made him uneasy.
Who are you really, Aspen?
As she walked away toward the building, Edward looked down at the little jar in Alice’s hand. The honeybee’s wings shimmered faintly in the weak Forks sunlight, like gold foil in glass.
For just a second, he thought he heard something quiet and impossible—a heartbeat that didn’t belong.
Edward lingered beside his brother under the brittle Forks sunlight, pretending not to pry while very obviously doing so. Aspen had drifted toward Mike Newton and Angela Weber, her tan Ushanka hat bouncing a little as she gestured animatedly—something about MySpace drama, apparently. Edward caught fragments of Angela’s gentle laugh and Mike’s gawky grin, and against his will, he found himself thinking: She fits here better than we do.
Still, curiosity gnawed at him. His eyes flicked back to Jasper, who was holding the letter like it was some sacred artifact. It was written in purple glitter pen, the kind that caught light and smelled faintly like grapes.
Jasper cracked a smile before reading aloud softly enough that only Edward—and of course Alice—could hear:
Chivalry isn’t dead yet, it seems, soldier.
You’re oddly kind for a man of this century. Don’t let anyone tell you your old ways are outdated—they just need better lighting.
If you want to seem more human, I suggest you stop standing like you’re about to duel someone for breathing near your horse. People here hug, Jasper. They make eye contact. They talk about coffee like it’s a personality trait.
You’re doing fine, by the way. Being human isn’t about faking heartbeat—it’s about remembering why we needed one in the first place.
If we’re allies, great. But I’d like to be friends too—if you can stand glitter ink and human stubbornness.
—Aspen.
Jasper’s expression softened in a way Edward rarely saw. His thumb brushed the paper gently, eyes tracing the curl of every letter.
“She’s…” He paused, his Texas drawl low. “Something else.”
Alice, meanwhile, was already halfway lost in a delighted rant. “I’m going to make a necklace for the little bee! Oh, it’ll look divine with my fall wardrobe. You know what, maybe she’s my new favorite person.”
Edward exhaled sharply through his nose, more an old habit than necessity. “She writes like she’s trying to reprogram you.”
Jasper gave him a sidelong glance, humor laced with quiet steel.
“Maybe she is. And maybe it’s working.”
For a moment, Edward heard something underneath his brother’s composure—a shifting current of emotion that wasn’t coming from Jasper but through him. A flicker of warmth that shimmered like candlelight, then something else—something alien to Jasper’s usual empathy.
Edward’s brow furrowed. “You’re feeling her again, aren’t you?”
Jasper nodded once, slowly. “It’s strange. Everyone else’s emotions move like air, but hers—hers hum. Like static or… memory.” He swallowed the thought, uneasy. “It doesn’t feel human. But it doesn’t feel dangerous, either.”
That disturbed Edward more than he’d admit. His gaze slid back toward Aspen, who was now laughing with Angela, head thrown back, sunlight catching on the little pins in her hat. That laugh shouldn’t have carried the weight of anything divine or destructive—but he’d heard it in Jasper’s mind, like an echo of something older.
“You think she’s rewriting fate,” Edward said finally.
“I think,” Jasper murmured, eyes still on the letter, “maybe she’s just reminding fate it can be rewritten.”
The words hung between them, heavier than they should’ve been. Alice twirled, oblivious, holding her honeybee charm up to the light like she’d found treasure. Jasper tucked the letter carefully into his jacket, already considering what he might write back—a proper reply, old-fashioned as a soldier’s promise.
Edward didn’t say what he was thinking—that maybe the human girl was right, and maybe that was the danger. Because for the first time since they’d come to Forks, something felt off-script. Something alive.
As Aspen waved goodbye to Angela and started toward the main building, Edward found his eyes following the warm tan flaps of her Ushanka, bobbing cheerfully in the cold.
He told himself it was caution. Curiosity. Not… whatever strange gravity she was building around his family.
Still, his jaw clenched as he muttered, “She’s going to get herself killed—or worse.”
Alice just smiled knowingly, skipping ahead toward first period. “Or maybe she’ll save someone, for once.”
Edward leaned back in his chair, hands pressed against his temples as the first bell rang. Forks High buzzed with morning chatter—desks squeaking, pencils tapping—but all he could hear was Jasper’s mind.
Not his voice exactly, but the soft, rhythmic whisper of thoughts shaping themselves into ink:
Miss Aspen,
You speak like a poet and a soldier all at once.
I reckon being human isn’t something I can fake—but I’ll try, if it means I get to write back.You mentioned hugs. I might need a manual for those.
Sincerely, your new friend, Jasper W. Hale.
Edward sighed through his teeth. He’s going to write it. He’s actually going to write it.
The frustration wasn’t jealousy—it was fear. The girl had already bent one line of destiny out of shape, and now she was tugging at another. Edward wanted someone to reason with him, to see the danger in a mortal girl toying with the delicate fabric of their secrecy, their world. But no one would. Not Alice, not Jasper, not Carlisle.
And as his eyes flicked toward the parking lot window, he saw her—Aspen—bouncing across the campus with her ridiculous fluffy Ushanka and fur boots. The kind of energy that made humans orbit her unconsciously. He tried to block her out. Tried to drown in other minds.
But all that came were the distant hums of La Push.
La Push - High School
Tuesday, November 9th, 2004 – First Period
Embry had been doodling on the corner of his worksheet for twenty minutes, trying to make the lines of his geometry proof look like waves. His pencil barely moved, though—because the moment he let his guard down, his brain went straight back to her.
Aspen.
The girl who’d fallen into the damn ocean that night weeks ago, yelling about “God” and destiny while he, Leah, Sam, Jacob, and others dragged her out. She’d looked fragile, half drowned, and somehow more alive than anyone else he’d ever met. And now—now she was dating Paul Lahote and reading tarot cards like some crystal-shop goth from Port Angeles.
He scratched the back of his neck. The rumors were getting ridiculous—half the school said she’d hexed Paul into loving her, the other half said she’d seen angels in the woods.
His phone buzzed against his thigh:
Quil: u talk to witch girl lately?
Embry: nope. :p jacob gets mad when we do lol
Quil: he jealous or scared?
Embry: both to be honest ha
He smirked but tried not to think about the truth: he missed talking to her too.
She was weird, sure, but she was funny—like she didn’t treat him like a dumb rez kid. Aspen actually asked about the tribe, about dreams, about things he couldn’t explain.
Now everything felt... tainted. Jacob stiffened anytime her name came up. And Paul—Paul looked at everyone like he was one heartbeat away from punching a wall.
Embry tried to refocus on his math. He didn’t notice until later that his hand had drawn a little spiral on the edge of the paper—the same spiral Aspen used to draw on her notebooks, symbol for “protection,” she’d said.
Jared Cameron’s POV
Jared had never met the girl. Not really. He’d seen her once from across the field—tan ushanka, plaid skirt, looked like trouble.
But the rumors?
Man, the rumors were wild.
“She’s a witch,” Brady whispered behind him in third period. “I heard she hexed Paul’s truck so it wouldn’t start unless she said a prayer over it.”
“She reads cards and talks to herself,” someone else said.
“Billy Black said she talks to the spirits,” another added.
Jared didn’t buy it—at least not entirely. He didn’t really believe in witches… or didn’t want to. The tribe’s stories were supposed to be metaphors, not high school gossip come to life. But Sam? Sam didn’t let anyone mock her. Leah didn’t, either.
And Paul? Paul actually smiled sometimes now. Not the cocky grin everyone was used to, but like he’d been seen.
Jared tapped his pencil against his desk, lost in thought. “If she’s a witch,” he muttered under his breath, “then she’s the calmest damn one I’ve ever heard of.”
Still, curiosity buzzed around the halls like static. Everyone wanted to know what spell she’d cast to have both Paul Lahote and Jacob Black acting weird.
During lunch, Jared overheard two freshmen whispering by the vending machine.
“She made the waves move for her,” one said. “Embry saw it.”
“No way,” the other replied. “She’s just emo.”
“Same thing,” the first kid said solemnly.
Jared rolled his eyes, grabbed his soda, and muttered, “2004 really needs better gossip.”
But when he passed by the windows overlooking the gray November sky, he caught himself glancing toward Forks—toward where the witch supposedly went to school—and felt the faintest chill crawl down his spine.
Maybe she wasn’t evil. Maybe she was just… something new.
Edward leaned against the wall outside his next class, pretending to read his notes while his mind scattered across the school grounds and beyond. The human chatter of Forks High blurred into background noise—what caught him wasn’t the surface-level gossip here, but the way it was echoing across minds miles away. La Push.
Through Jacob Black’s thoughts—restless, hormonal, and loud—Edward caught flickers of conversation that weren’t meant for him. Aspen. The witch girl. The one who reads tarot cards by the cliffs. The one with the weird energy, the one “dating” that Lahote kid. Edward could almost feel the gossip morphing as it traveled from mouth to mouth, warped by envy, curiosity, and something darker—fear.
It reminded him, disturbingly, of the media storms—the way the world had turned on girls like Britney Spears for simply being young, confident, and complicated. He’d heard the same breathless fascination in Jacob’s mind: part crush, part disbelief. She wore that to school? She hugged Paul in front of everyone? She said she could see the future, bro.
Jacob didn’t realize how transparent his fascination was. Edward could hear the blush in his bloodstream, the jealousy curling under his thoughts every time Paul’s name came up. The narrative twisting around Aspen wasn’t an accident, Edward realized—it had weight, intent. Some faint, oily tug of someone's influence weaving through the social consciousness, warping perception. It was as if the world itself kept trying to cast Aspen as something forbidden, something too much.
And if Edward was honest, it unsettled him. Not because she was dangerous—but because she might actually be free.
He exhaled quietly, forcing himself back into the mundane. Jasper’s emotions flickered faintly from another hall, still humming with curiosity and confusion from Aspen’s glittery letter. Alice was chattering about what color of wrapping paper she’d use for Aspen’s next “human friend surprise.” But Edward—he needed a focus.
Paul Lahote.
Edward turned his thoughts deliberately toward the boy’s mind—volatile, sharp-edged, alive. Paul’s thoughts were harder to read, like radio static through a storm, but not impossible. He was in class now, already half-bored, half-smirking at something his best friend Luke was scribbling on folded notebook paper.
The substitute teacher—a weary middle-aged man with a beige corduroy jacket—was trying to explain the Industrial Revolution and its “impact on youth labor.” Half the room was asleep. The other half, mostly the boys, were trading notes, doodles, and candy wrappers.
Edward caught flashes through Paul’s eyes as the note slid across the desk:
LUKE: “Bro, YOU’RE the man now. First one in our crew to actually do it.”
PAUL: “Do what?”
LUKE: “C’mon, don’t play dumb. You and the witch girl. Everyone’s saying you two were alone at the beach.”
Paul’s jaw tensed. His response—written in quick, hard letters—made Edward’s mouth twitch, half amusement, half pity.
PAUL: “We didn’t do anything, idiot.”
LUKE: “Sure you didn’t. You’re grinning like you did!”
PAUL: “She wants to wait. Until marriage. Not even a kiss.”
Luke’s snort was loud enough to make the sub look up. Paul just slouched lower in his seat, doodling absently in the margins of his paper—a messy sketch of a wave, maybe, or her hair in the wind that night.
Edward let the boy’s thoughts unspool a little more. There was frustration there, yes—but also something startlingly tender. Confusion wrapped in respect. She’s weird, but good weird. She looks at me like she actually sees me, not like I’m trouble.
Edward drew in a slow breath. That was the part no rumor would catch—the quiet between two young people who didn’t know what they were building yet, but felt it anyway.
And somewhere behind it all, the faint sense that the universe—or Meyer herself—was watching, waiting, ready to twist something pure into tragedy again.
Edward hated that feeling.
He thought, not for the first time, that maybe this time fate didn’t need to be rewritten by Alice or Jasper. Maybe it started with a boy who didn’t kiss the girl who wanted to wait, and a girl brave enough to make him.
Paul Lahote slouched in his seat, one knee bouncing under the desk as the substitute droned on about factory conditions and cotton gins. He wasn’t hearing a word. The scratch of pencils and the whisper of paper were louder than the teacher’s voice, and Luke kept jabbing him with an elbow like this was some kind of victory lap.
Paul didn’t feel like a winner.
He felt… twitchy. His skin was too tight. The cheap classroom air felt hot and heavy against the back of his neck. He couldn’t stop thinking about Aspen—her laugh, her weird glittery handwriting, the way she said things like “I don’t want to kiss until marriage” in that matter-of-fact tone that made him respect her and ache at the same time.
Luke passed him another note. Paul sighed, unfolded it.
LUKE: “So what’s next, man? You gonna marry her or what? 😂”
Paul rolled his eyes but smirked anyway. He grabbed his pen, the corner of his notebook already covered in half-drawn flames and waves.
PAUL: “Guess I’ll have to get married young to find out everything about her.”
He stared at the line. The ink was still wet, curling at the edges of the paper. Something about the words made his pulse jump. Married. Him. The thought was ridiculous—and yet his chest felt hot in a way that wasn’t just embarrassment. It was want, deep and heavy. His fingers flexed unconsciously, the muscles in his forearm tightening.
He’d never felt like this before. Not just attraction—something older, hungrier, territorial. The air around him thickened, humming faintly with some instinct he didn’t have a name for. It made him dizzy, like he could smell salt and forest and her perfume all at once.
Paul blinked hard and shook his head. What the hell is wrong with me?
The thought scared him enough to rip the note out of his notebook, crumple it, and shove it deep into his backpack. Then he wrote again—faster this time, trying to sound normal.
PAUL (new note): “I’m gonna ask her out again soon. Maybe the diner this time. Real date.”
He slid the paper to Luke before he could overthink it again. Luke read it, grinned, and gave him a thumbs-up. Paul just nodded, keeping his face blank as the sub called his name for attendance. He mumbled a distracted “here,” still thinking about that first note burning in his backpack like it meant something.
Something he wasn’t ready to understand.
The morning light at Forks High was washed-out, that foggy silver that made everyone’s hair look a little ghostly. Aspen stood near the side doors, talking to Angela Weber while Mike Newton bounced between them, too caffeinated for 8 a.m.
Angela was sweet, quiet, the kind of friend Aspen didn’t have to read cards for to understand. Mike, on the other hand—Mike was a walking Myspace bulletin.
“…and then Jessica’s ex-best friend made him her number one,” Mike said, waving his phone like a badge. “Then she posted, like, a callout, saying Jessica was fake because she tried to flirt with Edward Cullen and me—like me, dude!”
Angela giggled softly. Aspen tried to smile, sipping her coffee, pretending she wasn’t exhausted by teenage drama that felt both alien and magnetic.
She could feel the pulse of 2004 around her—glitter icons, top-eight betrayals, emo heartbreaks typed in lowercase. It was chaos, but her body, her teenage hormones, seemed to thrive on it in ways her 26-year-old mind didn’t approve of.
Her heart beat too fast. Her thoughts scattered. Somewhere between the laughter and the gossip, Aspen’s instincts flickered. The world seemed to hush—just for a heartbeat.
Someone was thinking about her.
It wasn’t like hearing a voice. It was like feeling a thread tighten across her ribs, a pull toward something warm and wild and impatient. She blinked and shook her head. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”
Mike was still rambling about Jessica’s Myspace post. “…and she literally said Edward Cullen wouldn’t even look her way, which is messed up, ‘cause he doesn’t look at anyone.”
Aspen laughed softly, but it was distracted. Her skin prickled.
Somewhere—miles away, maybe—someone’s emotions were brushing against hers. Restless. Curious. Wanting.
She’d felt echoes before—flashes of emotion that weren’t her own—but this was heavier, strange, as if something inside the air itself had recognized her.
She caught her reflection in the glass door: tan skin, glitter lip gloss, her favorite ushanka hat. For a moment, she envied the Cullens. Frozen in time. Beautiful and untouchable.
She, on the other hand, was trapped between worlds—an old soul in a young, burning body, trying not to get caught in the drama of both.
And still… somewhere out there, someone’s heart had quickened when they thought of her.
Aspen slammed her locker shut a little too hard. The metallic clang echoed down the hallway, startling a few freshmen nearby. She pressed her forehead against the cool surface, breathing out through her nose, trying not to let the panic win.
This was getting out of control.
She could feel it—Stephenie Meyer’s invisible hand tightening around the story’s reins again, like an author trying to pull a runaway scene back into line. The tension, the rumors, the whispers in class… all of it had that narrative weight that Aspen was starting to recognize.
The same dread she’d felt when her parents in this world called her “ungrateful.” When Paul’s mother had asked him if he’d used a condom. When Edward had looked at her like she was a problem to solve, not a person.
Meyer’s world didn’t like girls who didn’t play by the rules.
Especially ones who were sensual, spiritual, or worse—self-aware.
Aspen hugged her binder close to her chest. “You’re not going to make me the villain,” she whispered under her breath. “Not again.”
She thought of Bayaq, her invisible tether—the guardian presence that sometimes shimmered around her like static. Maybe he was part of this reality’s old magic, maybe something more primal, but she felt him. She sent up a silent plea: Please keep me safe. Keep them safe. Keep me free.
Her phone buzzed three times in quick succession.
First:
Paul 🐺: Hey. Wanna go out again soon? Maybe this weekend? ❤️
Her stomach flipped—softly, sweetly, like it used to before all the chaos.
Then the next:
Sam Uley: Hey Aspen. Can you do me a favor? Jared’s been acting weird. I think he’s about to phase soon. Go out with him, maybe calm him down?
She blinked. “What the hell kind of favor is that?”
Before she could process that, the third message came.
Jacob Black: Guess word spreads fast. Didn’t think you were that kind of girl, Aspen.
Her breath caught. The words blurred on the screen.
The sting of judgment. The tone. The double standard.
It was just like before—when she was human, when every rumor and assumption could burn a hole straight through your reputation.
She bit her lip hard enough to taste copper and shoved her phone deep into her bag.
“God, I hate high school,” she hissed, and bolted down the hall before anyone could see the tears threatening to spill.
Edward Cullen leaned against the Volvo, pretending to read The Grapes of Wrath while his mind buzzed with half a dozen voices at once.
It was chaos. As usual.
Jessica Stanley was thinking about how good her lip gloss looked.
Mike Newton was wondering if Aspen would ever go to Homecoming.
Jacob Black’s mind, somewhere far from here, pulsed with bitter jealousy.
Paul Lahote’s thoughts were rougher, half-confused desire tangled with guilt.
And through it all—like a low, steady hum—there was Aspen.
Edward’s golden eyes flicked toward her as she hurried across the courtyard, Ugg boots stomping, her tan ushanka bouncing with each step. Her emotions crackled faintly in the air, not readable like human thoughts, but felt—a current, like pressure before lightning.
He couldn’t hear her mind.
But somehow, she was bleeding through everyone else’s.
A whisper in Jacob’s bitterness. A flicker in Paul’s hunger. Even in Sam’s disciplined calm, there was something—an awareness of her. A strange magnetic pull threading through them all, like the echo of something ancient and forbidden.
And beneath all that… a scent.
Wolf.
Faint, but impossible to miss. It clung to her like mist, threaded through her heartbeat, her warmth. Edward’s jaw tightened. That shouldn’t be possible. She wasn’t one of them. She was human—or she was supposed to be.
He closed his book and watched her disappear into the hallway, her energy still vibrating against his senses.
Somewhere deep inside him, instinct whispered—this was how things began to break.
And this time, it wouldn’t be Bella Swan walking into Forks High who did it.
It would be Aspen.
The witch with a wolf’s scent and too much hope in her heart.
Jasper Hale sat perfectly still in his desk near the back of his classroom, pretending to take notes. The pen twitched once between his fingers, then cracked in two. Ink dripped between his knuckles.
The emotion hit him like a tidal wave.
It wasn’t hunger. Not the usual sharp pull in his throat that came when a human cut themselves in gym or a student brushed his desk too close. This was different. This was human agony.
He’d been monitoring the undercurrent of the campus all morning—typical high-school noise, teenage jealousy, boredom, arousal, caffeine jitters—but then Aspen’s emotions spiked somewhere across the building, raw and uncontrolled.
Fear. Self-disgust. Confusion.
Jasper’s stomach turned violently. His body didn’t even know how to process something that real, that alive. He bit the inside of his cheek until venom filled his mouth, focusing on the sting.
For one terrifying instant, he thought he might vomit—except vampires didn’t vomit. His body just convulsed, his throat tightening, chest clenching.
He whispered under his breath, “What the hell are you feeling, little witch?”
The emotions weren’t just leaking from her—they were screaming.
Aspen felt like she was unraveling from the inside out. The mix of panic, shame, anger, and exhaustion hit Jasper’s senses with a texture so detailed it almost had color: burnt orange panic tangled with deep blue guilt and sharp white flashes of rage.
He forced his focus into discipline—breath he didn’t need, posture perfect, eyes shut. He tried to steady her from a distance, pushing a faint ripple of calm toward her through the energy that connected them. It was clumsy—like trying to calm a thunderstorm with a whisper—but he tried.
Maybe if he could help her without touching her, without risking blood, he could be something closer to the man he’d been before the thirst defined him.
Maybe he could be good.
Aspen
The world was spinning again.
She was in her next class—biology, she thought?—but her pulse was all wrong, heavy and hot in her ears. Her hands were shaking. The smell of formaldehyde from the frog dissection bins made her gag.
It wasn’t just the sensory overload of being a teenager again. It wasn’t just Meyer’s script pushing her to play the part of “the emotional girl on the edge.” It was everything.
Jacob’s text replayed in her head like poison. Sam’s favor. Paul’s uncertainty. Edward’s invisible judgment. Her stepmother’s screaming from the night before.
And now—something else.
Something pressing against her chest from the inside, a phantom pressure, like she wasn’t alone in her own skin.
Bayaq, she thought faintly, please… I can’t handle this…
But no answer came.
She pressed her fists into her desk, breathing fast. Her vision blurred. She wanted to cry, scream, run, something—but her teenage body was responding the way it had at sixteen, not twenty-six. Hormones, fear, and shame all boiled together until her stomach lurched.
“I—uh—Ms. Thompson, can I—”
Before the teacher could answer, Aspen stumbled up from her chair and bolted for the bathroom.
Cold tiles. Harsh fluorescent light. The sound of her own breath echoing in the stall. She gripped the sink, staring at her reflection.
Her lips trembled. Her eyes were glassy. She looked like the version of herself she’d fought so hard to heal from—the one before therapy, before Prozac, before learning how to name her panic instead of drowning in it.
She slid down the wall, hugging her knees.
“This isn’t fair,” she whispered. “I’m not supposed to be sixteen again. I worked so hard to get better. I’m not supposed to feel this anymore.”
The air shimmered faintly, a flicker of gold against the edge of the mirror—Bayaq, maybe. Or the world reacting to her emotional overload.
She pressed a trembling hand to her heart. “Please,” she begged, voice shaking. “I’m trying. Just… don’t let me become what she wants me to be.”
And somewhere, faintly, she felt calm—cool, steady, like someone wrapping a blanket around her panic.
She didn’t know it was Jasper reaching for her across the campus, trying to help.
He didn’t know she was the reason his heart almost remembered what it felt like to beat.
The air above Forks shimmered—not with rain, but with willpower.
Bayaq hovered between the tangible and the unwritten, half in this world of ink and pixels, half in the raw energy beneath it. Here, everything Meyer had built—the Cullens, the wolves, even the trees—were made of story threads, luminous strings that hummed with narrative obedience. But lately, some of those threads pulsed red instead of gold. Aspen’s arrival had done that.
Good.
Bayaq smiled, his voice rolling through the static realm that lived between sentences.
He’d been patient for decades, watching as Meyer’s words pinned his people into cages of stereotypes and silence. Spirit wolves turned into metaphors for white girls’ fantasies. His ancestors, gutted and sold for romance.
So yes, Bayaq was fighting back—for three reasons that mattered more than vengeance.
First, to teach her that no author, however divine she believed herself, could own the spirits she borrowed.
Second, to show his people that even inside fiction, they could rewrite themselves into something freer, truer.
And third, to see if this “creator” could ever learn humility—the kind that comes when her perfect worlds start talking back.
He was enjoying the chaos too, admittedly. A petty thrill came from nudging scenes just out of her control, like changing a single line of dialogue and watching destiny hiccup.
Aspen was his favorite disruption—half accident, half rebellion. She wasn’t supposed to exist here, yet she did. A living glitch with a heart too human and too aware.
But Meyer was tightening her grip. He could feel her irritation bleeding into the script, every paragraph becoming more rigid, like a hand closing around a throat.
“She’s scared of losing control,” Bayaq murmured, voice echoing through broken code. “Good. Let’s see how she writes fear when she feels it herself.”
And then—his gaze turned downward, to the mortal layer of the story. Aspen was trembling in a bathroom, trying to stitch her emotions together.
He whispered to the current of energy wrapping around her: You’re doing fine, little light. I can’t undo her world, but I can bend it for you.
For now, the storm would wait. He’d watch. Learn. Prepare his next move carefully.
Jasper
By the time the bell rang, Jasper had already made up his mind.
He found her outside the science wing, leaning against the wall, still pale but breathing slower. The crowd of students parted instinctively around him; his presence always carried that quiet military gravity that made people keep their distance.
“Hey,” he said softly, careful not to startle her. “You all right?”
Aspen blinked up at him, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
“Yeah. I think so. Just… bad morning.”
Her voice was steadier than he expected. Brave, almost.
Jasper didn’t push. He just nodded toward the hallway where the vice principal was stalking past, eyes narrowing at Aspen’s skirt and layered polos like a hawk spotting prey. The woman was reaching for her clipboard—detention form.
Without thinking, Jasper shifted his stance subtly, catching the vice principal’s gaze. Then he smiled—the disarming kind, that smooth Southern charm polished by a century of pretending.
“Ma’am,” he said in that lazy drawl that made everything sound polite.
“She’s with me. I told her it was spirit week—school pride day, right? She’s just trying to match colors.”
The woman blinked, hesitated, then sighed. “Fine. But that skirt is pushing the limit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jasper said, still smiling. When she walked off, he muttered under his breath, “That’s one less enemy you have today.”
Aspen snorted, covering her face to hide her laugh. “Did you just save me from dress-code detention?”
“Guess so.”
“Thanks, cowboy.”
The nickname made him freeze for a second—too accurate, too human—and then he relaxed.
“Anytime, ma’am.”
They started walking toward her next class together. She was shorter than he remembered, moving fast like she didn’t want to be late, but every few steps she’d glance up at him as if trying to read his intentions.
“I… think I felt something earlier,” she said finally, quiet but certain. “Like I was panicking, but then it stopped. Like someone pressed pause on my brain for a second. Was that… you?”
Jasper hesitated. “Maybe. I didn’t mean to overstep.”
She smiled faintly. “No. It helped.”
The hall light flickered above them as they turned the corner, and for a moment, he thought he saw it again—that faint gold shimmer clinging to her like dust motes catching sunlight.
Something was changing. He didn’t know if it was her or the world itself. But as they passed under the humming lights, Jasper couldn’t help but wonder if maybe—just maybe—the world was learning to breathe.
Bayaq’s Perspective
Bayaq watched the threads of Meyer’s control tighten like barbed wire around the sky. Her words — her “canon” — were old, brittle things, but still dangerous. He felt them try to patch the holes he’d torn open, to pull the narrative back toward its “destined” path. He smirked. She thought she could still puppet this world like before.
He was done being her story’s footnote.
Bayaq had three joys to keep breaking her grip:
First, revenge — for the way she hollowed his people into spirit mascots for someone else’s fantasy.
Second, because chaos was fun. Watching her neatly stitched timeline unravel thread by thread amused him endlessly.
And third — though he’d never admit it to Aspen — because he’d grown fond of her. The girl wasn’t supposed to exist here. She was proof that free will could crack fiction. She needed time — time to build trust, allies, and to make the Cullens and wolves question the script written for them.
So when Meyer tried to pull Bella’s plane closer to Forks, Bayaq simply… nudged the weather.
The fog thickened. The roads washed out. Forks’ single airport “coincidentally” lost power. Meyer’s words stalled in midair — Bella Swan’s arrival was delayed indefinitely.
Bayaq grinned. “You can wait, storyteller,” he whispered to the clouds. “Let’s see what happens when the pawns talk to each other before your chosen one shows up.”
Jasper’s Perspective
He hadn’t meant to look for her — Aspen, the new girl who carried her heartbeat like static electricity — but he’d felt her panic in the hallway, sharp and metallic. It had pulled at him like thirst and sympathy combined.
When class ended, he lingered by the lockers until she passed. She noticed him before he spoke.
“You, okay?” he asked softly.
Aspen blinked, hand clutching her books. “Yuh?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You looked… overwhelmed earlier. I can help, sometimes. Just—calming things down.”
He let the edge of his power brush her, testing if she’d flinch. Most humans did, some too much. But she… steadied.
Aspen took a shaky breath, eyes widening. “You just—did that?”
“Yeah,” Jasper admitted. “It’s not mind control or anything. Just—helping you breathe.”
Aspen smiled faintly. “Then thank you. I was two seconds away from crying in trig class.”
Jasper chuckled. “We’ve all been there.”
When the bell rang, she tilted her head. “Walk me to my next class? If you’re not, like, avoiding daylight.”
He actually laughed — a low, human sound. “Sure thing.”
As they walked, Alice caught sight of them around the corner. Jasper felt her curiosity flicker through the bond like a question mark. But Aspen, to his surprise, waved Alice over.
“Hey! Come join us! You’re Alice, right? I was just telling Jasper how weirdly peaceful this hallway feels.”
Alice’s smile was polite, but her eyes glittered. “Weirdly peaceful, huh? That’s usually him.” She touched Jasper’s arm lightly. “What brings the new girl into our orbit?”
Aspen shrugged. “Just trying to survive high school. And maybe… build some bridges.”
Something in her tone made Alice’s grin soften. “I like her,” Alice said, half to Jasper, half to herself.
For the first time, Jasper thought maybe this wasn’t dangerous. Maybe it was just… new.
Leah was halfway through her lunch when the shouting started.
By the time she shoved through the crowd, Paul had Jacob pinned to the floor — both of them snarling, fists flying. Embry and Quil were trying to pull Paul off, but it looked more like a rugby pile than an actual rescue.
“Boys,” Leah muttered under her breath, “are walking hormone disasters.”
Jacob swung back, knuckles connecting with Paul’s jaw. Paul barely flinched — his movements sharper, almost too fast for a human. Leah’s stomach dropped. Oh no. She’d seen that kind of heat before. That twitch in his shoulders — the pre-wolf kind.
“Everyone make room!” Sam’s voice boomed, part-command, part-growl. He barreled in, grabbing Paul’s arm before it could connect again. A few teachers were already yelling, trying to break through the wall of students filming on their flip phones.
Leah crossed her arms, scowling as Embry tried to play peacekeeper and Quil shouted something about “Jacob started it!”
The whispers reached her before Sam did.
“—fighting over Aspen—”
“—Paul asked her out—”
“—Jacob’s jealous—”
“—heard she’s talking to the Cullens too—”
Leah rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. “Unbelievable,” she muttered. “New girl’s been here a week and already the testosterone apocalypse begins.”
Still, she couldn’t shake the prickle under her skin. Paul wasn’t supposed to lose control like that. Not yet. Something about Aspen was messing with all their wiring.
As Sam dragged the boys apart, Leah sighed, muttering to herself, “I need to hang out with this Aspen chick soon — figure out what the hell she’s done to all of them before someone ends up dead or imprinted.”
And above them, unseen, Bayaq laughed quietly to himself. Meyer’s “perfect love story” was already cracking open at the seams.
Leah was still standing on the edge of the cafeteria lawn, thumb hovering over her phone, when chaos bloomed in front of her. The fight wasn’t ending — it was escalating.
Sam had both Paul and Jacob by the arms, Coach Clapp yelling something about “school property,” but the boys weren’t listening. A wave of teenagers pressed closer, chanting, phones out, hungry for more drama. Quil was trying to grab Jacob’s shoulder; Embry was yelling at Paul; and for a second, Leah thought maybe this was the dumbest thing she’d ever seen.
Then Jacob broke free.
He lunged, fist swinging wild, and the crack of impact echoed over the quad. Paul stumbled back, blood on his cheek, but he was grinning — actually grinning — like he was enjoying it.
“Are you kidding me?” Leah muttered, rubbing her temple. “For what? A girl?”
Coach Clapp and two teachers dove in to separate them again while Sam shoved Jacob back hard enough to leave a scuff mark on the pavement. Leah snorted under her breath — partly from disbelief, partly because she’d never let herself lose it like that over anyone. Not even Sam, and he was her boyfriend.
What the hell was going on?
She finally ducked away from the crowd, thumbs flying across her flip phone screen.
Leah ➜ Aspen:
Ummm. FYI. Paul + Jacob = full WWE in the quad. Over u 👀
A beat later she added, joking but not really:
Hope ur flattered. They almost killed each other.
She hesitated, glancing up again. Sam was shouting orders, dragging Paul toward the parking lot, and Jared was lingering near the bleachers, watching it all like he already knew how it’d go down.
“Idiots,” Jared muttered when Leah stopped beside him. “Jacob called Paul’s witchy girlfriend a slut. That’s when Paul lost it.”
Leah blinked. “His what?”
Jared smirked, like this was all so obvious. “Aspen. The new girl. He said she’s into spells or something. Kinda weird, right? Sam told Paul to ask her out, but Jacob said—” He cut himself off when Leah’s expression turned into an arctic glare.
“Hold on,” she said slowly. “Sam told Paul to ask her out? Since when do we set up assignments for dating?”
Jared shrugged. “Guess Sam thinks she’s trouble. Or maybe he wanted to keep an eye on her. I dunno. But Paul actually likes her now.”
Leah’s jaw tightened. Aspen — that awkward, polite, kind of spacey girl who’d helped her mom carry groceries last week — didn’t seem like anyone’s trouble. A little offbeat, sure, but “witchy girlfriend”? That was just high-school stupidity talking.
Still… why was everyone so fixated on her?
Leah sighed, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “Boys are ridiculous,” she muttered. “If I ever start punching people for a crush, someone slap me.”
Jared chuckled. “Noted.”
As Sam finally dragged Paul off campus and Jacob was forced toward the nurse’s office, Leah caught the faintest flicker of a familiar someone else will know about this.
Forks High’s golden boy — Edward Cullen — leaning casually against the car, unreadable behind his sunglasses. Watching the scene. Listening, maybe.
Leah felt a chill crawl up her spine.
Edward didn’t belong in this picture — not yet. And the way his gaze followed the chaos, like he already knew the gossip before anyone spoke it, was unsettling.
Maybe he was wondering the same thing she was:
What made Aspen so magnetic that she could turn calm boys rabid?
Leah didn’t know. But she did know one thing — she was going to find out, preferably before another fist hit the pavement.
Twilight mixed with the meta-tilt of your fanfic’s world — where Aspen’s presence and Bayaq’s interference are subtly warping the canon timeline, tone, and fate.
Leah’s phone buzzed with a new message just as the last bell before lunch rang.
Aspen:
who started it?
That was it. Three words. No punctuation. Just… that calm, eerie kind of text that made Leah feel like she was the one being tested, not the boys who’d nearly knocked each other’s teeth out.
She stared at the screen for a long moment, thumb hovering. Who started it?
Did she tell Aspen the truth—that Jacob threw the first punch after calling her a slut? Or did she soften it, try to keep the peace before it turned into more drama? These were her people. Her community. And Aspen, for all her weirdness and tarot cards and floppy ushanka hat, had somehow become tangled in it after one date.
Leah sighed, chewing her lip. She wasn’t close to Jacob anymore, not since he’d gone full moody-loner after summer camp, and she barely knew Paul outside of his cocky smiles and his annoying habit of winking at her friends. But still—this wasn’t just schoolyard gossip.
Whatever was happening around Aspen… it felt bigger.
And for a split second, she swore she felt something brush her mind.
Like someone flipping through pages of her thoughts, then shutting the book.
Leah blinked, shook her head hard. “Get a grip,” she muttered. Probably stress. Probably hunger. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, and now her brain was inventing weird crap.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Aspen wouldn’t like any of this.
Not the attention. Not the fight. Maybe she’d joke about it, laugh nervously — but inside? Leah figured Aspen would rather die than have two boys swinging fists over her.
She sighed again and typed, slowly, carefully:
Leah ➜ Aspen:
Jacob. But Paul didn’t exactly back down. U okay?
Then she slipped her phone into her pocket and headed for the cafeteria, feeling that faint mental itch return, just for a moment.
Forks High smelled like burnt fries, wet sneakers, and cheap perfume — the usual symphony of teenage decay. Edward sat at his usual lunch table, pretending to eat, tuning out most of the cafeteria noise — the whispering thoughts, the hormonal chaos, the incessant buzz of gossip about him.
But one set of thoughts, one voice, kept bleeding through no matter how hard he tried to push it out.
Aspen.
The girl from Texas, basically, belonged to La Push. The girl he couldn’t quite categorize. Her scent was strange — not vampire, not human, not wolf — something flickering in-between. A resonance, like static electricity under his skin whenever she passed.
He shouldn’t even be thinking about her. He should have been strategizing how to protect his family, how to keep their secret if she was something dangerous. He’d already decided: if Aspen ever crossed the line — exposed them, lured attention, or brought that witchcraft nonsense too close — he’d handle it personally.
And yet…
He looked up from his untouched tray just as a small eruption of laughter broke out two tables away.
Aspen.
She was poking her tuna melt with a plastic fork, making the sandwich “talk” in a ridiculous sing-song voice.
“Eat me, Jessica! Kiss me, Jessica! I’m yummy!”
Jessica Stanley looked horrified. Lauren Mallory was pretending not to laugh. Mike Newton was red-faced from holding in a snort.
Even Angela Weber was smiling.
Edward cringed — visibly, audibly, even though vampires weren’t supposed to. The sound grated in his throat.
She wasn’t dangerous. She was absurd.
But that absurdity unsettled him more than outright evil would have.
Aspen didn’t play by the script he expected. She wasn’t the shy, breakable girl Meyer’s invisible hand seemed to be shaping. She was something else entirely — chaotic, unpredictable, a new kind of gravity in the story.
He tuned in to her mind out of reflex — only to find… nothing. Blank. Static. A frequency he couldn’t reach, couldn’t read.
His jaw tightened.
That made her worse.
Alice was giggling quietly at the next table over, clearly amused by the scene. Jasper was stone-still beside her, trying to keep his emotions from spiraling out of control while his eyes flicked toward Aspen.
Edward didn’t like that, either.
“Ridiculous,” he muttered under his breath.
Emmett leaned back in his chair, smirking. “What’s ridiculous? The sandwich thing? Or the fact that you’re staring at it like it’s about to explode?”
Edward didn’t answer. He was too busy listening — not to Aspen, but to the ripple her laughter caused.
All around the cafeteria, people were talking. About her, about La Push, about witches and fights and boys. The story was spreading — mutating.
And Edward realized, with a cold knot in his chest, that whatever force was rewriting this world’s fate — it wasn’t done yet.
Aspen wasn’t just a threat to their secrecy.
She was a threat to the narrative itself.
Aspen stabbed her tuna melt with exaggerated flair — the melted cheese stretching like a cheesy battle flag — and just as she was mid-performance, she felt it.
That buzz.
Like her soul had brushed against a live wire.
Her eyes flicked up, casual but certain — and there he was. Edward Cullen.
Perfect posture, jaw tense, pretending he wasn’t staring while absolutely staring.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, everything around them — the cafeteria noise, the smell of burnt fries, the squeak of shoes — seemed to thin out. Like the fabric of this fake high school, this fake world, was tugging taut around them both.
The rewriting energy pulsed through her veins again, sharper now.
Not cruel, but possessive. Like Meyer herself was watching through Edward’s golden eyes, furious that Aspen was breaking script by existing.
Aspen blinked once. Smirked.
And then — because she was her, because she was tired, because she could feel that tightening control trying to make her small — she raised her fork.
A playful pew-pew gun gesture.
Right at Edward Cullen.
The vampire looked scandalized, like someone had told him classical music was overrated.
Jessica lost it.
A loud snort-laugh burst from her before she slapped her hand over her mouth, blushing furiously.
Aspen wiggled her brows, murmuring, “Guess I just shot my shot, huh?”
Jessica half-giggled, half-panicked. “You’re crazy, Aspen.”
“Maybe,” Aspen said, smiling thinly. “But I’m not boring.”
It wasn’t possible.
He was a century old, a master of composure, of restraint. He had heard every possible thought a human could have — and yet, somehow, Aspen made him feel mortal.
Her fork gesture replayed in his head, a flicker of irreverent defiance.
And that smirk. That audacious, knowing smirk.
Edward’s jaw tightened. His hand gripped the table edge until it cracked, though no one noticed under the cafeteria noise.
He couldn’t read her thoughts. He couldn’t predict her.
She was chaos dressed in plaid and fur, a walking paradox wrapped in glitter pen handwriting.
And worst of all — she knew.
She knew he was watching.
She knew what he was.
She knew she was being written, and she didn’t care.
For the first time in decades, Edward Cullen — proper, gentlemanly, composed Edward — muttered under his breath,
“Bloody hell.”
Emmett heard. Of course he did.
The grin that spread across his face could’ve powered a small city.
“Did the girl with the sandwich just make you cuss, bro?”
Edward didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Aspen was walking out of the cafeteria now, swaying her Ushanka hat by one ear flap, chatting to Angela Weber like she hadn’t just casually declared war on the structure of the narrative itself.
Edward could still feel her laughter echo in his head like static.
And somehow, impossibly, he could smell wolf.
The text came right as Leah was leaving her final class of the day.
Aspen:
lol I am gonna to La Plush later, Sam said he will pick me up, and he said I am allowed to get after Lahote and Black myself!
Leah blinked. Scrolled down. There were more.
Aspen:
you think they’ll listen?
or should I bring a chancla for dramatic effect
Leah snorted so loudly people looked at her.
That was Aspen, alright. Acting like she wasn’t halfway the center of a supernatural soap opera.
But beneath the laughter, Leah felt… uneasy.
Aspen didn’t get what she was walking into. La Push wasn’t Forks High. You didn’t just waltz in after a fight like that — not with the elders already buzzing about witchcraft and the tension between the families building.
Still, Leah could see it in her mind — Aspen with her big hat and fearless mouth, standing there lecturing Jacob and Paul like, they were toddlers who’d stolen cookies.
Leah laughed again, shaking her head. “God help the both of them,” she muttered.
Then she texted back, fingers flying fast:
Leah ➜ Aspen:
girl pls don’t murder them. we need those idiots alive.
A pause. Then, almost despite herself, she added:
Leah ➜ Aspen:
but ngl… kinda wanna see it 😂
And as she hit send, Leah couldn’t shake the feeling that Aspen wasn’t just going to La Push.
Aspen was walking straight into whatever Bayaq — and the story itself — had planned next.
Chapter 8: Sins of My Father fall Upon My Shoulders
Summary:
Finding out why the fuck Aspen had to "fall" into the Twilight SEries- she hates it- confronting her past and truth!
Also trying not kill Edward Cullen
Not fight Jacob and Paul
Not get arrested- Aspen forgets she be teenager body- she tries to flirt with Charlie Swan and other fellow single adult- she forgets she stuck in a teen body at times- sue her!
Aspen being like I hate this body! OH A HOT PERSON OF MY AGE!
Edward reading her mind- this bitch is ACTIVITY TRYING TO DIE OR WANTS TO GET GROOMED! SOMEONE HAS STOP HER!
PLEASE BE NORMAL, HUH?
Meyer sending Edward to control Aspen or not wander off from the plot/story!
Aspen looking at Edward feral- these people are too hot to be fictional- I am old maiden let me- let me go! You aren't my dad! AHhdhfhd let me date these characters instead!
Meyer meehhh no- you are a teen, remember?
Aspen, you just hate me on God!
Notes:
Aspen trying her best to be teenage again but same time screaming I am in hell in her mind 24/7 as Bayaq, Meyer, and others the spiritual world watch Aspen try not make same teen mistakes she did in the past but also watch her breakdown almost each second, they ask of her for something!
Aspen crawling the walls- I need my PROZAC AND MY THERAPIST NOW!! LET ME GO- FREEDOM!
Everyone watching her spiral a bit
Edward reading and see best/worst of her mind being like damn, she really be bad like that?
Aspen trying manifest setting Edward on fire as he starts being nicer to her
Aspen looking at all the characters all these are like my children of sorts- expect Edward, Paul, and Jacob- they are my demons- of my teenage past, yeah not very fitting since they are guys, I guess?! I like them in sense I have hate complex of my hero/martyr complex, rage issues, and more that see in them can't forgive myself yet but I am taking out on them!
It's not their fault they like that though, also fuck you, Eddie. I love you from a distance Aspen screams after bashing his car window in!
When Bella comes to town, Aspen going be on her like fly on the wall also on Edward's throat and making sure Jacob doesn't get hurt!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sam’s truck rumbled down the rain-dark highway, wipers swiping in a steady rhythm against the November drizzle. The interior smelled like wet pine, French fries, and nervous tension. Leah sat shotgun, elbow propped against the window, watching gray mist snake along the road. The soft hum of the radio filled the silence until Seth crunched loudly on another fry from one of the many greasy paper bags on his lap.
Aspen sat behind Leah, legs crossed and posture somehow perfect even in the lurching truck. In her arms was a large white box with little hand-drawn symbols inked on each side—crow feathers, stars, and a doodled wolf paw or two. She guarded it carefully, as if she were carrying something sacred. Every so often she’d peek inside, checking that her handmade gifts hadn’t shifted too much. Each was wrapped in recycled comic pages, tied off with thrifted ribbons or old guitar strings. Inside were the “oddities”—small tokens she’d made after homework sessions and long evenings crafting with Trish.
“Trish said takeout was the best way to calm anyone down before a fight,” Aspen had insisted earlier. “No one throws hands with a full stomach.”
Now, she was hoping that logic held up.
From the cluster of greasy brown bags in Seth’s lap came the scent of Pacific Grill fries—crispy, over-salted, and beloved by every Forks teen who’d ever skipped study hall. The spread was a true 2004 dream: onion rings from SubZero Burgers & Shakes, a mountain of fries, two bags of teriyaki chicken skewers from Forks Drive-In, and one precious bag of curly fries that Seth was absolutely hoarding. A milkshake cup rattled in the holder beside him, pink foam sliding down the lid.
“Hey—save some for Embry and Quil,” Leah muttered, reaching to steal one fry. Seth yanked the bag away protectively.
“I’m growing,” he mumbled through a mouthful.
“You’re gonna grow sideways,” Leah shot back, smirking.
Aspen hid a small laugh behind her hand. “He’s not wrong, though,” she said gently. “You’ll need all the calories for—well, eventually.”
Seth blinked. “Eventually what?”
Sam’s knuckles tightened slightly on the wheel. “Eat your food, Seth.”
The silence that followed wasn’t tense exactly—more like the hush before lightning strikes.
Aspen tilted her head toward the window, watching trees blur past. Her reflection shimmered faintly in the glass, eyes catching the dull light as if something deeper glowed inside them. She could feel it—the pull.
That strange static energy that had been growing around her lately, stronger with every encounter. Between Edward’s disbelieving stares, the boys’ sudden fighting, and Meyer’s ever-tightening control over the world itself, Aspen could almost taste the edges of the story bending toward her.
Leah shifted in her seat, breaking the quiet. “So,” she began, glancing over her shoulder at Aspen. “What’s in the box, exactly? You bringing bribes?”
Aspen smiled. “Gifts. For everyone.”
“Gifts?” Seth perked up. “Like what?”
“Something personal,” Aspen replied with a grin that didn’t quite give anything away. “Sam gets one that reminds him to breathe before leading. Leah’s is… well, you’ll see. Quil and Embry’s are just silly. Paul and Jacob’s are lessons in patience.”
Leah raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like you wrapped a threat in a bow.”
Aspen’s grin widened. “Depends on how you unwrap it.”
Sam exhaled through his nose, not quite a sigh, not quite amusement.
He didn’t say it aloud, but he respected her nerve.
The rain thickened, pattering against the windshield. Forks’ lights faded in the distance, and the coastal road toward La Push stretched ahead—slick, winding, and alive with the sound of tires over wet pavement. Seth hummed along to the radio, oblivious and content, while Leah caught Aspen’s gaze in the mirror. For a split second, Leah could’ve sworn she saw something shimmer behind Aspen’s eyes—like a story rewriting itself mid-sentence.
They were heading straight into the heart of the storm.
But at least, Aspen thought, they weren’t going hungry.
Sam’s truck pulled into neutral territory—a fog-wreathed stretch of La Push beach parking lot that Paul had half-jokingly declared Switzerland months ago. The ocean glared slate-gray beyond the dunes, waves crashing like muffled thunder under the mist. Driftwood logs framed the scene, and the smell of rain and salt mingled with the sharp tang of fried food.
Sam killed the engine. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then Seth exploded out of the back seat with the energy of a sugared-up puppy, clutching the takeout bags like a prize.
“First come, first served!” he shouted, darting toward the sand.
Leah was out right after him. “You little fry thief—get back here!” she yelled, sprinting after him. Her shoes skidded in the gravel, and Seth’s laughter echoed as he dodged her, waving a carton of fries triumphantly.
Sam exhaled and got out, shaking his head with that long-suffering patience that came from being everyone’s unofficial dad. He rounded the truck and opened the back door for Aspen. She stepped down carefully, clutching the white box like it contained fragile magic—which, in a way, it did.
The air was cool, almost electric. The kind of wind that felt alive. The clouds rolled low, painting everything in twilight tones. Aspen’s hair fluttered in the gust, and her shoes sank slightly into the damp sand as she looked toward the figures waiting near the driftwood: Paul, Jacob, Embry, and Quil.
They were all there. Paul leaned against his car, arms crossed, radiating irritation; Jacob stood beside him, jaw tight; Embry and Quil lingered behind, caught between curiosity and discomfort.
Sam’s voice carried calm authority. “We’re here to talk. And eat.”
“Eat first,” Seth piped up, running by again with Leah in hot pursuit.
“Then talk!”
“Seth!” Leah barked, finally catching him by the collar. She snatched the bags, glaring but unable to hide her laugh. “You’re lucky Aspen brought peace offerings.”
Aspen stepped forward. “Actually, yeah,” she said, holding up the box. “I thought… maybe gifts would make this easier.”
Paul raised a brow. “You brought presents?”
“Handmade,” she replied. “Trish helped. She says food and weird crafts fix 60% of conflicts. The other 40% just need hugs or holy water.”
That earned a snort from Embry and a stifled laugh from Quil. Even Jacob’s shoulders eased a fraction.
Aspen knelt and opened the box. Inside, nestled in tissue paper, were the oddities:
-
For Sam: a smooth piece of driftwood carved into the shape of a wolf’s head, half-painted with metallic ink. The base read “Leader ≠ Alone.”
-
For Leah: a bracelet made from broken sea glass and copper wire—delicate, irregular, but luminous when the light hit.
-
For Seth: a small keychain carved into a wolf paw holding a fry. “Because,” Aspen teased, “you literally can’t keep your paws off food.”
-
For Quil: a miniature comic zine she drew herself called “The Chronicles of Quil the Chill,” featuring him saving the world with sarcasm.
-
For Embry: a tiny snow globe with a wolf silhouette inside and glitter swirling around. On the base, she’d etched, “It’s okay to sparkle.”
-
For Jacob: a handmade compass that didn’t point north, but toward a small photo of La Push beach—symbolizing home and grounding.
-
For Paul: a smooth black stone with the words “Temper / Fire / Choice” painted in red, then sealed in resin.
Paul stared at it for a long moment before muttering, “...You made this?”
Aspen nodded. “Yeah. I figured if I can’t stop chaos, I can at least give it something pretty to look at.”
For a moment, the only sound was the surf. The pack shifted uneasily, emotions twisting under the surface—pride, guilt, curiosity, and something else none of them could name.
Jacob finally broke the silence. “You really didn’t have to do this.”
“I know,” Aspen said simply. “That’s why I did.”
The air thickened—the supernatural hum returning, subtle but undeniable. The wind seemed to hold its breath around her, that same strange energy that made Edward flinch and made the wolves uneasy. It whispered at the edges of the story itself, bending toward her presence.
Leah, finally catching her breath, looked between them all. “Well,” she said dryly, “at least if anyone throws a punch now, we’ll have nice keepsakes to remember it by.”
Seth snorted through a mouthful of fries. “And fries!”
Even Paul cracked a reluctant smile, shaking his head. “You’re insane, you know that?”
Aspen grinned. “Yeah. But it’s working, isn’t it?”
The wind tugged at her hair again, carrying the scent of rain and salt and something like possibility. The tension hadn’t vanished—it just shifted, softer now. Like the world itself was pausing, curious to see what this girl would do next.
Seth Clearwater didn’t think much about the heavy air that hung around the group that night. He was too busy devouring his fries. The salt and grease mixed perfectly with the damp, cold breeze that came off the ocean, and he was in heaven.
Pre-teen Seth Clearwater, before wolves, before packs, before destiny—was just a kid at a beach bonfire surrounded by growing adults who acted way too dramatic for his taste. He sat between his favorite person in the whole world, Leah, and the guy who was technically cool but also gross because he kept kissing his sister when he thought Seth wasn’t looking—Sam.
“Hey, pass the burger,” Seth mumbled, already halfway through a carton of fries.
Leah rolled her eyes but handed it over anyway. “You’re gonna explode, you little gremlin.”
“I’m growing,” he said through a mouthful of bread. “Coach Clapp says protein’s important.”
Sam chuckled softly. “He’s right, kid.”
“Yeah, but not all at once,” Leah muttered.
Across from them sat Paul, Jacob, Embry, Quil, and Aspen, their faces lit by the firelight and headlights from Sam’s truck. They all ate with the same intense energy that only teenagers who lived on constant motion could—though Seth was pretty sure no one enjoyed it as much as he did.
Jacob kept glancing toward Aspen, then looking away like he didn’t mean to.
Paul chewed like he was mad at his food.
Embry and Quil traded fries and dumb jokes.
And Aspen… she looked quiet. Too quiet.
Seth licked ketchup off his thumb, studying everyone. Weird, he thought. Usually when people hung out, they laughed. But right now, it was like everyone was waiting for something to break.
He nudged Leah. “You think people at your school think you’re popular or something? They all act weird when you’re around.”
Leah raised a brow. “I don’t think that’s what this is, kid.”
Sam gave him a look that said drop it.
Seth shrugged, unconcerned. He popped another fry into his mouth and leaned back. He liked being here. The food was free, the ocean was loud, and Aspen was always funny when she wasn’t tired.
Except now, she didn’t look funny.
Aspen had just finished her burger when she wiped her hands on a napkin, stood up slowly, and looked between Jacob and Paul. The fire cracked behind her, painting her face in gold and shadow.
“You know,” she said lightly, voice threading through the wind, “I’m not a prize to be won. You know that, right?”
The tone was sharp—not angry at first, but cutting.
Jacob’s jaw tensed. Paul’s eyes flicked up from his food.
Seth blinked, sitting up straighter. He’d heard that voice before—when Aspen told off the upperclassman who threw her sketchbook into the mud last month. That tone meant run or listen.
Paul scoffed. “No one said you were—”
“Oh, you didn’t?” Aspen interrupted, her voice low but dangerous. “Because the last I heard, two idiots nearly tore up the high school over a girl who didn’t even ask to be part of it.”
The wind picked up. Seth thought her hair looked weird for a second—like it was moving more than the breeze should’ve made it. It curled and rippled, catching the firelight in restless waves. For a heartbeat, Seth thought it looked alive—like wild water or maybe snakes.
“Do you have any idea,” Aspen continued, “how stupid it is to fight someone over me? You made Sam clean up your mess. You embarrassed your families. And you think it makes you look strong?” She pointed her fork toward Jacob. “You think that makes you right?”
Jacob’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
Paul tensed like he might talk back, but even he didn’t.
Seth stopped chewing. The air felt weird—thick, humming, like the world itself leaned closer to listen. His sister’s hand brushed his shoulder. He looked up and saw Leah watching too, eyes narrowed. She felt it too.
Aspen’s voice softened. “You two don’t even like me that way. You like the idea of fighting for something. So next time, pick something worth it.”
The fire popped loudly, as if to punctuate her words. The mist seemed to retreat, the night calming around them.
Seth swallowed, his small heart pounding. He didn’t get everything that was going on, but he knew one thing for sure: Aspen was scary in a cool way. Like a storm pretending to be a girl.
Leah exhaled beside him. “Well,” she muttered, “guess that answers that.”
Seth grinned nervously, whispering, “She’s gonna be my third favorite person.”
Leah elbowed him lightly. “Good list, little man.”
Across the fire, the others sat in stunned silence—Jacob ashamed, Paul avoiding eye contact, and even Sam looking impressed. Aspen sat back down, grabbed her soda, and took a sip like nothing happened.
Seth finally dared to eat another fry. “So,” he said brightly, breaking the silence, “who wants dessert?”
Seth Clearwater perked right back up like nothing heavy had ever happened.
“Finally!” he said, grabbing the first Styrofoam box Trish had packed.
Inside were gooey brownies and a stack of still-warm cookies that smelled like heaven. “I call dibs!”
Leah rolled her eyes, but she smiled faintly. “You always do, piglet.”
Seth grinned through a mouthful. “Sharing is for losers.”
“Yeah?” Embry snorted, grabbing a cookie anyway. “Then call me a loser.”
“Loser,” Seth said with a full mouth, crumbs flying.
That broke the tension enough that Quil joined in, juggling a brownie and pretending to burn his tongue. Seth laughed so hard he snorted. For a second, it felt normal—like just a weirdly big family picnic instead of… whatever this whole night was supposed to be.
Then Aspen stood up again.
The laughter died. Seth’s grin froze, half a cookie hanging from his lips.
She was shaking—not afraid, but vibrating with that same wild, storm energy she had when she’d called the boys out earlier. The firelight threw her shadow long and sharp across the sand.
“Wait,” Leah said under her breath. “She’s not done.”
Aspen’s gaze locked on Jacob, who’d been sulking near the edge of the truck lights, kicking sand like a guilty kid. She took a slow step toward him, her voice tight.
“So… you called me what?”
Jacob blinked. “I—”
“You called me a slut, right?” she interrupted, louder this time. Her tone cracked through the night air like a whip.
Even the ocean went quieter for a moment.
Jacob stammered, “I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean it?” Aspen snapped, eyes flashing. “Because when you say something like that, it doesn’t just mean what you think it does. It means you’ve decided I’m less than you. That my choices—my life—are open for everyone to talk about.”
She threw her soda can into the sand so hard it popped, fizzing between them.
No one moved.
Then, without warning, Aspen turned and sprinted toward the beach—fast.
“Wait, where is she—” Leah started, but then Paul howled—a loud, barking laugh—and bolted after her.
“Oh no,” Quil muttered through a mouthful of cookie.
“Oh yes,” Embry grinned. “Showtime.”
The next few seconds were chaos.
Jacob, maybe realizing this was his cue to run, bolted down the sandbank, yelling something that sounded like “I said I’m sorry!” while
Aspen chased him on all fours, barefoot, hair flying, making sounds that honestly did not sound entirely human.
“Holy crap, she’s actually doing it!” Quil laughed, nearly choking on his brownie.
“Ten bucks says she tackles him before the waterline,” Embry said, elbowing Seth.
Seth couldn’t stop laughing, his dessert forgotten as he clutched his stomach. “She’s like a superhero! Or—like—a mad dog!”
“More like a rabid seagull,” Leah muttered, but even she had to bite her lip to hide a smile.
Paul, trying to catch up to both of them, was barking in laughter and actual imitation dog noises now. “Aspen, don’t kill him! He’s just stupid!”
Down by the tide, Jacob tripped over driftwood and fell flat on his back just as Aspen launched herself forward—tackling him into the wet sand. A dramatic splash followed.
Embry and Quil both whooped like they were watching a wrestling match.
Seth almost fell off the log laughing.
Sam groaned, rubbing his temples. “This is not how I wanted tonight to go.”
Leah leaned close, her voice low but sharp. “You think this was just a temper tantrum?”
Sam sighed. “No. That girl’s got something in her. Old energy. Not just anger.”
Seth pretended to poke at his cookie but tilted his head, trying to eavesdrop as best he could. The elders always lowered their voices when things got interesting.
Leah frowned. “You mean like… witch stuff?”
“Maybe,” Sam said, gaze locked on Aspen as she stood over a sputtering, soaked Jacob. “Or maybe just… the part Meyer can’t control.”
Seth blinked. Who’s Meyer? he thought, stuffing another cookie in his mouth. Adults said weird things sometimes.
He craned his neck, trying to hear more, but Leah noticed and shoved a brownie into his hand. “Eat your dessert, nosy.”
“Okay,” he said cheerfully through a mouthful, eyes still on the beach. “But she totally won, right?”
Down by the surf, Aspen was laughing now—wild and loud—as Paul tried to help Jacob up, still cackling about it all. Jacob grumbled something that made Paul shove him lightly into the waves again.
Seth grinned wide, chocolate on his cheek. “Man, I can’t wait to be a teenager.”
Leah groaned. “You’ll regret saying that one day.”
“Doubt it,” Seth said, licking his fingers, watching the chaos unfold like it was the best movie of his life.
Jacob honestly didn’t know how the hell the night had turned into this — him sprawled in the wet sand while Aspen practically draped herself over him like an overexcited golden retriever.
She was soaked, dripping, hair plastered to her cheeks, eyes glinting wild like she’d just outrun a storm. And she kept growling at the waves like they were challenging her to a fight.
Jacob blinked, chest rising and falling fast.
“…Aspen. You good?”
Instead of answering, she wriggled closer, bumping her shoulder into his chest, then nuzzled her forehead briefly against his collarbone like a dog greeting its packmate.
And—God help him—he felt his heart trip.
Paul jogged up behind them, breathless, laughing so hard he could barely talk.
“Okay—okay, pup—what are you doing to Jacob? Seriously. What is this?”
Aspen propped herself up on her elbows, water dripping down her arms. She grinned at both of them.
“I’m treating him how he treated me,” she said sweetly. “Like he’s chew toy stuck between me and you.”
Jacob stared at her, baffled.
“…What?”
She giggled, leaned down, and booped his nose.
BOOP.
He froze.
Then she whispered, closer to his ear, voice trembling between mischief and something wounded:
“I’m not a slut. I’ve never even kissed anyone. Ever. And Paul can confirm that.”
Paul groaned into his hands.
“Oh my God, Aspen—why are you telling him that—?”
Jacob’s throat tightened and he didn’t know why.
The moonlight hit her face, and he saw it clearly — the sincerity, the embarrassment she was trying to bury beneath humor, the way her expression flickered when she admitted it.
Jacob felt his chest twist hard.
He’d thought she was fearless. Untouchable.
This weird, bright spark that bounced into every space like she’d been invited.
But now he saw the cracks.
And it hit him so abruptly he almost reeled:
He was attracted to her.
Not like he’d been attracted to girls at school.
Not like Bella, Aspen keeps saying Bella will be his downfall, where he could convince himself, he had a chance.
This was different.
More feral.
More instinctive.
More hers.
And he hated that he liked it.
Especially after she’d taken off like a hurricane, tackled him, wrestled him in the surf, and basically dragged every ounce of pride he had through the mud in front of the whole damn crowd.
But God… he couldn’t deny it.
Aspen laughing, soaked, hair wild, nose scrunched —
It lit something in him.
Something stupid.
Something dangerous.
Something a wolf would call interest.
Aspen suddenly flopped beside him in the wet sand, staring out at the waves like nothing happened.
Paul hovered behind them, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly.
“Aspen,” Paul tried, voice weirdly gentle, “you okay now?”
But her breathing was shaky.
The adrenaline was fading.
And now she just looked… tired.
Small, even.
Jacob sat up, watching her chest rise a little too fast, her fingers twitching in the sand like she wasn’t sure what her hands were supposed to do.
He didn’t say anything.
Didn’t know what he could say.
For some reason, he felt guilty.
Aspen sat at the edge of the incoming tide, letting the cold water run over her knees. Her hair hung heavy and dripping, her clothes clinging to her like half-drowned petals.
The fun was gone.
The laughter too.
All that remained was the sting of Jacob’s earlier words still echoing in her skull.
Slut.
She didn’t even know what she’d done to deserve that.
And she hated that it got to her.
Paul stood awkwardly behind her, rubbing the back of his neck.
“…Hey,” he tried. “You don’t gotta—like—sit alone. We can go back and—”
“Not right now,” Aspen whispered.
Paul shut his mouth like he’d been slapped.
He wasn’t good at feelings.
Not hers.
Not anyone’s.
But he sank down anyway, sitting a respectable inch away from her, elbows on his knees, staring at the surf like it personally offended him.
That was his way of saying he cared.
And she knew it.
Leah watched them from a distance — arms crossed, expression unreadable.
Then she sighed sharply and marched over to Sam.
“Keep Seth with you,” she ordered. “And keep an eye on those idiots.”
She flicked her chin toward Jacob, Quil, and Embry who were still arguing about whether Aspen should join them for wrestling matches or be banned for everyone’s safety.
Sam raised a brow. “Everything okay?”
“No,” Leah said bluntly. “And I’m about to fix that.”
Seth tried to follow her but she snapped her fingers.
“Nope. Stay with Sam.”
“But Leah—”
“Seth, I swear, if you try to eavesdrop again I will personally tie you to a tree.”
Seth froze mid-step, dessert still in his hand.
“…Okay,” he said meekly, then whispered to Sam, “but I really wanted to hear what they were gonna talk about…”
Sam chuckled.
“Eat your dessert, Seth.”
Seth did — aggressively — trying not to laugh at all the chaos he’d witnessed tonight.
Leah, meanwhile, reached Aspen and Paul.
She offered Aspen her hand.
“Come on,” Leah said, softer than anyone usually heard her.
“You’re with me tonight. Girl talk. Now.”
Aspen blinked up at her, surprised.
Then slowly, she took her hand.
Paul looked between them, confused.
“You’re… taking her?”
“I’m taking her,” Leah confirmed, already guiding Aspen away.
“But—she’s my—”
“Paul,” Leah cut him off, “if you don’t shut that insecure boyfriend voice up, I’ll throw you into the surf myself.”
Aspen managed a tiny smile.
A real one.
Leah smirked.
“There she is. Alright, baby wolf. Let’s go.”
And Aspen let herself be led into the trees —the night air cool, the waves soft behind her,
Jacob staring after her with a look he didn’t yet understand, and Paul standing helpless, torn between worry and pride.
Leah didn’t lead Aspen far — just up the driftwood path where the moonlight could find them and where the boys’ loud nonsense faded into ocean hush. She stopped beside a fallen cedar trunk and crossed her arms.
“Sit,” Leah said, not unkindly. “Before Paul comes crashing after you like a lovesick bulldog.”
Aspen gave a tiny, exhausted laugh and sat. Water dripped from her sleeves.
Leah sat too — but angled slightly, like someone preparing to intercept emotional shrapnel.
“Alright,” she said, voice steady. “Talk. What the hell is going on between you and Paul? And Jacob? And why is Sam suddenly acting like your parole officer?”
Aspen looked down at her hands.
They trembled.
Leah’s expression softened a fraction. “Hey. No freaking out. Just talk straight. I can smell lies a mile away.”
Aspen swallowed.
She had warned Sam, Paul, and Jacob that she could not reveal certain things — not yet. But she also knew Leah wasn’t someone she wanted to lie to. Leah deserved truth, even if Aspen had to skirt the edges.
“…It’s complicated,” Aspen whispered.
Leah snorted. “Everything with boys is complicated. Try me.”
Aspen pulled her knees to her chest.
“I’m not… dating Paul,” she said, at least half-truthful. “Not the way you think.”
Leah raised a brow.
“He sure acts like you are.”
Aspen winced. “I know. I don’t… I don’t know how to stop him. Or Jacob. Or anyone.”
Leah stilled.
“‘Stop them?’ Aspen — they’re not dangerous.”
Aspen lowered her voice. “Not like that. Just… it’s not worth it.”
Leah frowned. “Why not?”
Aspen hesitated — and then let the truth slip out, soft and small:
“Because I’m stuck in a teen body here. I’m not ethically allowed to let anyone fall in love with me.”
Leah blinked.
Hard.
“…What?”
She leaned in. “Aspen. Are you saying—Are you older than you look?”
Aspen’s breath shook.
“I can’t say more. Not yet. Bayaq would kill me. And I can’t risk… breaking rules I’m barely allowed to bend.”
Leah’s eyes narrowed at the name, but she didn’t interrupt.
Aspen stared out at the dark water.
“I’m not allowed to date until I’m eighteen,” she said firmly. “I’m waiting until marriage. And I won’t kiss anyone until I’m engaged or married.”
Leah gave her an incredulous look.
“…Seriously?”
Aspen nodded.
Leah rubbed her forehead. “Okay, well — that explains why Paul looks like someone set off a bomb in his skull every time you touch his arm.”
Aspen flinched. “I didn’t mean to touch him. I don’t mean to make anyone feel anything. I don’t want the complications. I don’t want the heartbreak that comes with being… stuck.”
And her voice cracked — just once.
Leah’s posture changed. Shoulders relaxing. Tension draining.
Something like older-sister instinct waking.
“Aspen,” she said gently, “none of this is your fault. Boys get crushes. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”
Aspen bit her lip.
“But you didn’t hear what Jacob called me.”
Leah’s jaw tightened. “Oh, I heard. And trust me, I’ll handle that.”
Aspen shook her head. “I don’t want anyone hurt. I just… I want them to stop seeing me like I’m something to chase. I love them both but not like that. Not the way they think.”
Leah quieted.
“You… love them?”
Aspen nodded slowly.
“Paul feels like… a guardian. Like someone who was supposed to find me.”
She swallowed. “And Jacob feels like someone who will matter… but not in a romantic way. Not even close.”
Leah stared at her — really stared — until the wind filled the silence.
“…Okay,” Leah said finally. “I believe you. Mostly.”
She exhaled sharply.
“You’re too honest for your own good, actually.”
Aspen’s shoulders sagged — relief trembling through her.
“But answer me this,” Leah said, tone softening but eyes sharp:
“What was that about you going on a secret date with Paul that could get you sent back to Texas?”
Aspen wrapped her arms tighter around her knees.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered. “My father would be furious if he found out. Sam asked me to go — because Paul was spiraling, and Sam thought I could help him calm down.”
Leah let out a low whistle. “Sam set you up with Paul? Okay, that’s insane. Brave. But insane.”
Aspen nodded. “I didn’t mean to make Paul feel anything. Or Jacob. Or anyone.”
Leah reached out, surprising them both, and squeezed Aspen’s shoulder.
“Hey,” she murmured. “Look at me.”
Aspen looked up, eyes wet.
“You’re a good kid,” Leah said bluntly. “A weird one. Complicated. But good. And if you’re this stressed about hurting people? That says more about your character than anything.”
Aspen blinked rapidly.
“So,” Leah continued, “until all of this gets sorted? You’re with me. I’ll handle the boys. I’ll keep them from being idiots. And I’ll make sure you’re not drowning in whatever secret apocalypse you’re carrying on your back.”
Aspen let out a sound between a laugh and a sob.
Leah smirked.
“There she is.”
Then her voice dropped, quiet but fierce:
“You don’t have to tell me the truth about everything. Not yet. But someday? I hope you trust me enough to.”
Aspen whispered, “I do. I already do.”
Leah froze like no one had ever said that to her before.
And then — carefully — Leah folded Aspen into a hug.
Just a short one.
But warm.
Protective.
Something sisterly.
“Alright,” Leah muttered, standing up. “Let’s go back before Paul chews a hole in the sand pacing.”
Leah hadn’t finished with Aspen — not even close.
When they’d started walking back toward the main clearing, Leah slowed again, tugging Aspen gently by the wrist so they were half-shielded behind a stand of thick ferns.
“Wait,” Leah muttered. “There’s… something else.”
Aspen blinked, already bracing herself.
Leah crossed her arms — defensiveness hiding genuine worry.
“You’re young,” she began, “but you’re not stupid. You’ve got some kind of… gravity to you. People orbit you. Especially hormonal idiots like Paul and Jacob. And if you don’t set really clear boundaries? They’ll twist themselves into pretzels thinking they’re meant to win you.”
Aspen opened her mouth, but—
Bayaq’s voice brushed her ear like smoke.
Leah doesn’t really believe you’re older than you look. She thinks you’re hiding trauma, not time. You’ll have to earn that trust the slow way.
Aspen huffed under her breath — both at Bayaq and at the truth of it.
Leah misread that huff as frustration.
“I’m not judging you,” she said firmly. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. And Paul—” she exhaled sharply, “—Paul feels things intensely. Stupidly intensely. He’ll think everything’s a sign. And Jacob… Jacob’s got that hero complex. If he thinks you’re in danger from Paul? He’ll escalate.”
Aspen felt something inside her tighten — that familiar trap of knowing exactly how the story was designed to twist people.
Meyer’s mocking snicker flickered in the back of her mind.
Ethics? Sweetheart, this world was written so the love interests don’t need them.
Aspen’s eyes burned.
She pitied Meyer.
She pitied Leah more.
Because Aspen knew — Sam would one day imprint, helplessly, on Emily.
Leah’s heart would be shattered by fate she never asked for.
And Aspen didn’t know if she could stop any of it.
“…Leah,” Aspen whispered, voice trembling. “No matter what happens in the future… can we be friends? Can we be each other’s rock? Please?”
Leah blinked at her, stunned by the intensity.
Aspen stepped closer — voice low, almost ceremonial.
“I would die for you too.”
Leah’s breath caught.
She wasn’t used to anyone giving her loyalty so fiercely, so simply.
For a moment she could only stare — then she swallowed hard and nodded once, sharp.
“…Yeah,” Leah whispered. “We’re solid. You and me. No matter what.”
Something in Aspen’s chest loosened.
Something ancient in her — and in this world — recognized that oath.
Paul was pacing tight circles like an overcharged battery, jaw clenched, eyes scanning the tree line.
When the girls reappeared, Paul stopped dead mid-stride.
His entire body softened around the edges.
He tried to hide it. Failed spectacularly.
His voice came out a little too loud:
“Aspen! You good? Did she— I mean — did you— are you okay?”
Leah rolled her eyes.
“Down, Paul.”
Paul scowled at her but shut up instantly.
Jacob wasn’t pacing.
He was sitting on the log, elbows on knees, fingers digging into his hair.
When he saw Aspen, he stiffened — then visibly relaxed, like his lungs remembered how to work.
He wasn’t sure why.
He didn’t want to think about why.
Sam watched everything like a man standing on the edge of a future avalanche, trying to map its trajectory.
He made eye contact with Leah.
She gave him a look that said:
Handled. But I’ll brief you later.
Sam exhaled through his nose, mildly relieved.
Seth practically exploded forward.
“WHAT DID YOU TWO TALK ABOUT?? PLEASE I’M DYING HERE!”
Leah put a hand on his forehead and shoved him lightly back.
“None of your business, pipsqueak.”
Seth stumbled, indignant.
“Hey!! I’m almost thirteen! I deserve answers!”
“Absolutely not,” Leah said.
Aspen walked up to Jacob with a soft, tentative smile.
“I… want to make peace,” she said quietly.
Jacob swallowed hard.
He wasn’t used to girls approaching him gently.
Especially girls who had just tackled him into the ocean.
“I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Jacob muttered, voice low. “It wasn’t true. And it wasn’t fair.”
Aspen nodded.
“And I shouldn’t have gone full chihuahua on you.”
Jacob snorted despite himself.
“Aspen,” he said softly. “I don’t think you’re a—” He forced the word out. “—that.”
She met his eyes.
“I know. And I forgive you.”
Paul, hovering behind her, let out a relieved breath.
Quil whispered to Embry:
“Are we sure this is the same girl who tackled him like a wild raccoon?”
Embry whispered back:
“I’m scared of her. In a good way.”
Leah clapped her hands sharply, making the boys jump.
“Alright, listen up! All of you! Paul, Jacob, Quil, Embry — kneel.”
Quil blinked. “Wait, like for real?”
“NO,” Leah snapped. “Metaphorically. Sit your asses down.”
The boys obeyed.
Leah pointed at Jacob.
“You — no more name-calling. No more jealousy. No more macho posturing.”
Jacob grumbled. “Okay…”
She pointed at Paul.
“You — stop pacing like she’s your emotional support squirrel. And stop acting like you’re imprinting or something.”
Paul choked. “WHAT?! I— I’m NOT—”
“Exactly,” Leah said. “Cool it.”
She pointed at Quil and Embry.
“You two — stop being the peanut gallery. No more commentary, no more cheering on fights. Act like human beings.”
Quil raised a fry like a toast. “Yes ma’am.”
Embry saluted with a burger.
Leah sighed heavily.
“Teenagers,” she muttered.
Seth leaned toward her. “Am I gonna be like that?”
Leah looked at him — saw the fries on his shirt, the dessert smudged on his cheek, the starry-eyed innocence.
“…Kid,” she said, patting his head,
“You have NO idea.”
Seth shivered.
“Whoa. Being a teenager sounds terrifying.”
The night had cooled into that misty La Push twilight where the air smelled like wet stone and drifting cedar smoke. Aspen took one last breath before turning back to everyone — giving each goodbye like it mattered, because in her heart, it did.
Aspen crouched to his height, poked his nose, and handed him one last fry from the takeout bag.
“Don’t ever change,” she whispered.
Seth beamed like it was a prophecy.
She pressed one of her handmade charms into his hand — the little carved driftwood spiral she’d made to “keep his brain from short-circuiting.”
Embry flushed red.
“This is… cool. Thanks.”
“It’s to remind you you’re smarter than you think,” Aspen said.
Embry quietly memorized that like scripture.
She flicked his forehead lightly.
“Don’t get yourself killed doing dumb stunts.”
Quil grinned. “No promises.”
She handed him a tiny charm shaped like a seashell that rattled like a maraca.
“For luck,” she smirked.
She touched his arm gently — respectfully.
“Thank you for trusting me.”
Sam nodded with that solemn seriousness of someone who somehow already understood fate was waiting for him.
“You showed up for the right people tonight,” he said quietly.
She hugged Leah without hesitation — something Leah didn’t expect but accepted stiffly, then slowly sank into.
“Don’t forget what I said,” Aspen whispered.
“No matter what.”
Leah swallowed. Hard.
“I won’t.”
She stepped close, brushing Jacob’s long hair out of his face with a tenderness that startled him into stillness.
“You look better when you smile and when you’re just yourself,” she whispered.
“And… let’s hang out soon. Alone. I need to tell you something important.”
Jacob’s breath hitched.
“And I’m going to teach you never to call a girl that word ever again.”
Before he could answer — before he could ask why his chest suddenly felt like gravity had shifted —
Paul shouted:
“Aspen! Princess! Help me pick up the trash before raccoons eat it!”
Aspen nearly jumped, waved goodbye to Jacob, and ran toward Paul.
Jacob stood there frozen, hair still tingling where she’d touched it.
Paul had already grabbed most of the trash, grumbling under his breath with over-the-top martyr energy.
When Aspen jogged up beside him, Paul slung an arm around her shoulders without thinking — protective, instinctive, almost boyfriend-like but in a way that made them both awkward.
Aspen stiffened for half a second… then leaned into him because it felt safe in a way she didn’t have words for yet.
“You’re cold,” Paul said, voice low. “Get in the truck.”
But he didn’t let go of her shoulder until they reached it — like if he released her, someone would snatch her back into chaos.
Once they were inside, Paul rested one hand on the wheel, the other on the back of her seat, angled toward her.
“…You scared me today,” he admitted quietly.
“Oh?” Aspen tilted her head.
“Yeah. ’Cause you ran. And because Jacob—”
He stopped. Shook his head.
“Just… don’t do that again.”
Aspen looked at him softly, not committing either way.
Quil and Embry walked on either side of Jacob like bodyguards for someone emotionally concussed.
“So…” Quil hummed, nudging him. “What was that?”
Jacob rubbed his chest. “I don’t know. I just— I felt like she was mad at me for real. And then she touched my hair and… and—”
Embry rolled his eyes.
“You’re into her.”
Jacob glared. “NO. I mean… maybe? I don’t know. She’s weird. And strong. And she tackled me.”
Quil fell against Embry wheezing.
“DUDE you’re so gone.”
“No, I’m not!”
“You are,” Embry said simply.
Jacob kicked a pebble hard enough to crack it.
“…What do I do now?” he muttered.
Quil shrugged.
“Don’t be stupid?”
Embry clapped him on the back.
“And don’t make her mad.”
Jacob groaned.
As the others left, Leah hooked Sam’s arm, pulling him back toward the tree line.
“Sam,” she said, voice low. “Listen to me.”
He turned, eyebrows raised.
“That girl is not… normal.”
(Not said with fear — said with deep curiosity.)
Sam nodded slowly. “I know.”
“No,” Leah insisted. “Not in a bad way. Just… different. Good different. But dangerous different too.”
Sam’s jaw tightened at that word.
Leah continued:
“I think she’s here for a reason. And I think you need to protect her. Not coddle her. But watch her back.”
Sam exhaled, considering it.
“You’re starting to like her,” he observed.
Leah gave him a rare, small smile.
“…Yeah. I think I am.”
Back in Forks, Edward sat upright in his room like someone had thrown ice water on him.
He wasn’t in La Push — he couldn’t be — but thoughts traveled.
Thoughts leaked from kids passing through town, gas station clerks, diners, teachers…
Fragments of Aspen filtered in like radio static:
that girl tackled Jacob Black into the ocean—
she made Quil nearly choke laughing—
Sam walked her to the truck like she was royalty—
Leah Clearwater actually hugged her—
Edward froze, throat tight.
Humans didn’t start mythologies around someone in a single night.
Unless she wasn’t human.
But the worst part?
He couldn’t hear Aspen herself.
Her mind was either silent… or shielded.
Not nonplayer character like those from the video games from his classmate's mind.
No predictable background character.
This girl… was an anomaly.
And Edward Cullen hated anomalies.
He whispered one word under his breath — something he rarely allowed himself:
“…Shit.”
In the cracks of the universe — in the place where narrative and fate braided together — Bayaq returned to the unseen threshold where the story’s architect lingered.
Meyer hovered there, smug and brittle, sipping the essence of tropes she believed immutable.
Bayaq crossed his arms.
“She’s not yours to torment,” he said.
Meyer smirked.
“Oh, please. I built this world. I gave it romance, danger, longing. That girl is just a fun variable.”
“No.”
Bayaq stepped closer.
“She is a rebuke. A correction. A reminder your characters deserve autonomy — not cages.”
Meyer scoffed.
“You think the wolves or the vampires will change their destinies for her?”
“I don’t think,” Bayaq said calmly.
“I know. Because she will.”
Meyer went still.
Bayaq leaned in closer, voice soft and cutting:
“Your world is cracking from the inside. And Aspen is the wedge you deserve.”
Meyer’s smile faded.
In the space between worlds, something trembled.
Something shifted.
And the story we are writing — The Abyss — deepened.
Paul slid into the driver’s seat, the old truck coughing to life with its familiar growl. Aspen climbed in beside him, dripping lake water onto his seats, smelling like cold river and warm skin. He pretended not to care. He failed.
Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage thrummed through the speakers, the bass vibrating under his palms on the wheel. Of course she liked it — he could tell by the way she immediately relaxed, humming like the song lived in her bones.
Paul didn’t look at her. Not directly. He kept his gaze pinned on the road, jaw tight, heart doing that annoying stutter-step it did when she got too close.
Aspen tucked her wet hair behind her ear.
“I didn’t know you listened to this kind of stuff,” she murmured, almost smiling.
Paul swallowed. “You don’t know a lot of things about me.”
Her hum faltered, flickering into something that looked like worry or curiosity. Or both.
Aspen’s Thoughts — leaking just enough for him to feel them
Are they drawn to me because Meyer thinks it’s funny? Because I have history with people like them in real life? Is Meyer mocking me by making them fall in love?
Paul’s grip on the wheel tightened.
“Don’t,” he said low.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t talk about yourself like you’re some… joke someone wrote.”
His voice shook, just a fraction. “You’re real enough.”
Aspen blinked slowly at him, stunned by the softness under the rough surface.
Did Paul try anything?
Only in the way Paul Lahote pre-wolf would:
-
His arm stretched along the back of the seat.
-
His fingers almost brushed her shoulder.
-
His body angled slightly toward her, a territorial instinct he didn’t understand burning low.
But he didn’t actually touch her.
He kept thinking: Jacob isn’t here. She smells like river and heat. If she leaned even an inch…
But he didn’t move first.
He wasn’t stupid. And Aspen wasn’t fragile — but she deserved better than impulse.
“What were you humming?” he asked just to break his own tension.
“Nothing. Just… memories.”
Paul didn’t push.
But he memorized the sound.
Like he always did with her.
Edward crouched on a moss-covered branch, silent as breath, following the truck with those unblinking, amber eyes.
Aspen’s mind was usually a fog — an old radio half-tuned, static with hints of melody.
Tonight, however…
He caught a clear thread:
“I once knew a Paul… and the rest is history. But this Paul, I will try to protect as much as I can.”
Edward froze.
Not a crush.
Not manipulation.
Not fear.
A vow.
Something in Edward’s chest tightened.
Aspen wasn’t an NPC. She wasn’t malleable. She wasn’t prey.
She was… unpredictable. Impossibly so.
And everyone in town — teachers, students, patrons, neighbors — their thoughts repeated the same quiet conclusion:
She’s not a threat.
She’s necessary.
She’s different, but not dangerous.
Leave the girl alone.
Edward had never seen anything like it.
He sank deeper into shadow, unease prickling along his skin.
Something was coming.
And Aspen was right in the center of it.
Leah lay awake for hours that night, staring at the ceiling of her room, replaying Aspen’s words.
“No matter what happens… can we be each other’s rock?
I’d die for you too.”
Nobody said things like that.
Not in Forks.
Not on the rez.
Not to Leah Clearwater.
By morning, Leah didn’t need more convincing.
“Yeah,” she muttered to herself as she tied her hair up.
“She’s mine now. Chaos sister privileges unlocked.”
She found Sam in the kitchen.
“We’re watching her,” Leah said bluntly. “Something’s coming. I don’t know what. But she’s important.”
Sam leaned against the counter, frowning.
He already knew.
He could feel it in the marrow of the world — a shift, a warning, a distant pressure.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “I felt it too.”
Leah didn’t hear the rest of his thought:
She feels like fate.
Far beyond mortal sight, Bayaq padded through the cracks in the narrative, clawing at seams only he could see.
He whispered into the scaffolding of the world:
“You don’t get to own her, Meyer.
Or the boys.
Or the story.”
He twisted a few lines.
Bent some outcomes.
Rerouted a future kiss Meyer had tried to schedule.
The author-god shrieked at him from her void.
Bayaq just laughed, tail flicking.
Jacob woke up feeling like he’d swallowed a blender full of feelings.
He couldn’t focus on anything:
-
Not Mr. Banner’s rambling lecture
-
Not the buzz of fluorescent lights
-
Not Quil whispering jokes
-
Not Embry poking him asking, “Bro, what did she do to your brain?”
He kept seeing Aspen’s eyes.
Hearing her whisper:
“You look better when you smile. Let’s hang out soon. Alone. I need to teach you something important.”
He kept feeling her hand brushing his hair back.
He kept remembering the way her breath brushed his cheek.
He dropped his pencil. Twice.
Embry leaned over. “You’re freaking out.”
Quil nodded. “Weirdly romantic for you.”
Jacob buried his face in his arms.
“…I think I’m in trouble.”
Days passed
Aspen slipped into my seat early — a miracle, honestly — and pulled Jasper’s envelope from my bag. His handwriting still looked like it belonged on an 1860s military dispatch. Neat. Severe. Heavy.
She unfolded the letter.
And read.
Miss Aspen,
I hope you will forgive the intrusion of another letter. I find myself relying on written words because speaking them… invites interference from certain members of my family.
You asked why I avoid the other students.
It is not disdain.
It is recognition.
Humans feel my presence the way horses feel a coming storm. Instinctive. Wordless. A pressure in the air that says predator. I wish I could turn it off. I wish they looked at me and saw a boy, not a threat.
Some days I envy them so fiercely it feels like thirst.
You asked me — perhaps jokingly, perhaps not — whether I would want to be human again.
The answer is yes.
And also no.
I miss the simplicity of guilt when I made a mistake, rather than the crushing weight of thousands of mistakes echoing through memory. I miss hunger that could be satisfied with food. I miss… the feeling of belonging to my own kind.
But I do not trust myself with humanity.
My nature remains a battlefield. Blood is not a craving to me — it is an addiction that has carved itself into who I am. Some days I am stronger than it. Some days I am not.
Please do not fear me.
But please do not trust me carelessly, either.
Your ally (if you will still have me),
Jasper Hale
She exhaled slowly as she folded the letter shut. Her chest tightened — sympathy, not fear. Jasper wasn’t terrifying. He was tragic.
“Jesus,” she whispered. “He needs a therapist. And a hug. And rehab.”
A shadow fell across her desk.
“Not today, Edward—”
I snapped my head up.
Not Edward.
Emmett Cullen.
Great. The giant one.
He leaned his elbow on the desk like we were best friends sharing a lunch table.
“Wow, rough start to your morning, huh?” he grinned.
She blinked up at him. “What do you want, Cullen #3?”
“Just thought you should know,” he said lightly, “Edward’s in a mood today.”
Aspen groaned so hard it felt spiritual. “Tell me that’s not because of me.”
Emmett lifted both brows.
“That’s exactly because of you.”
Of course it was.
He leaned in conspiratorially.
“Baby bro’s been digging real deep in the minds of Lahote and Sam Uley and Jacob Black. Trying to see if you… I don’t know…” Emmett shrugged. “Did some witchcraft on them?”
She stared at him blankly.
“Witchcraft,” Aspen repeated.
“Hey, not my theory,” Emmett said with a laugh. “Edward’s convinced something’s up. You’re giving him bad reception.”
She buried my face in my hands.
“I’m too old for this teenage nonsense.”
“You’re sixteen,” he reminded.
“I am spiritually eighty.”
She stood, shoved the Jasper letter into her bag, and pointed at Emmett like a tired mother pointing at a child in Target.
“Tell your baby brother to stay in his lane,” she said. “I don’t belong to him. I’m not his woman. I’m not his problem. And if he’s jealous because I might be dating Paul Lahote? That’s between me and Paul.”
Emmett’s grin widened.
“Ohohoho. You’re gonna break him.”
“That’s not my job!” Aspen snapped.
And she stormed out.
Jessica caught up to Aspen in three steps.
“What happened? What happened?? Your energy is at, like, DEFCON 3.”
“Edward Cullen is being a freak,” I announced loud enough for three freshmen and a soccer player to hear.
The hallway rippled.
“Edward Cullen?”
“Wait, like that Cullen?”
“I thought he didn’t talk to people?”
Jessica’s mouth dropped open.
“What did he DO?”
“Act jealous!” I barked. “Act possessive! And I’m not even—ugh, I don’t even know him!”
Jessica blinked rapidly.
“…Wait. Why is he jealous?”
“I don’t KNOW, Jessica! Ask his mind-reading ass!”
Jessica covered her mouth, half horrified, half thrilled.
“So—are you actually dating Paul Lahote?”
I glared.
“Jessica.”
“Oh my god you are.”
The hallway buzzed as people whispered:
“Aspen’s fighting with Edward Cullen?”
“About Paul?”
“Dude, is that a love triangle?”
“No way, Cullen’s never liked anyone!”
“Paul would totally fight a vampire—”
“He’s not a vampire.”
“Yet,” I muttered under my breath.
Jessica jogged to keep up.
“So are you gonna tell me the details or—”
“NO.”
“But—”
“NO.”
She pouted but followed Aspen anyway.
Because drama was Jessica Stanley’s oxygen.
Here is your continuation — third-person omniscient, Edward Cullen heard it all.
Every muttered whisper, every thought, every ridiculous teenage exaggeration turning Aspen’s annoyed outburst into a full-scale social meltdown.
He froze in the middle of the hallway.
She said Edward’s jealous—
Nah, she said she’s dating Paul Lahote.
DID YOU SEE EMMETT’S FACE—
Bro I’m posting this on MySpace—
His expression twisted.
Jealous?
Dating Paul?
He hadn’t felt this personally offended by humanity since 1918.
Emmett leaned against a locker across the hall, arms crossed, laughing so loudly students turned and stared.
“Dude,” he wheezed. “You should see your face. You look like you just bit into a lemon soaked in battery acid.”
Edward did not respond.
Because the thoughts were getting worse.
Paul Lahote is HOT, girl I would too—
Edward Cullen is totally into Aspen.
Aspen snapped at him so hard; he looked like someone unplugged him.
Who even IS she??
Drama at Forks High?? YES FINALLY.
Teachers weren’t better.
These children exhaust me.
Isn’t that the quiet Cullen boy? Why is he glaring at everyone?
I should confiscate phones…
Edward’s jaw clenched.
Someone was texting.
He whipped his head to the left.
A sophomore girl was feverishly typing:
“OMG ASPEN YELLED AT EDWARD CULLEN! SHE SAID SHE MIGHT BE DATING PAUL!!”
Edward blurred forward so fast her hair swished back from the air displacement, snatching her flip phone from her hands.
“HEY!” she yelped.
But it was too late.
Message sent.
Emmett laughed so hard he slid down the lockers to the floor.
Edward stormed out of the school, fists balled, the girl yelling after him about “boundaries” and “give me back my phone, psycho!”
Jacob Black was eating a granola bar at his locker when his cheap silver Motorola Razr vibrated.
He opened the text.
Paused.
Read it again.
“…What the hell?”
On the screen:
“Aspen yelled at Edward Cullen in the hallway + said she might be dating Paul Lahote???”
Jacob’s stomach did something unpleasant — a drop, then a flare of heat, then something that felt suspiciously like jealousy.
Before he could process it, a second text came through:
“Edward was JEALOUS AS HELL. Dramaaaa.”
Jacob groaned. “Are you kidding me—”
Paul Lahote kicked open the cafeteria doors at that exact moment, already running hot, some kid breathlessly shouting after him:
“PAUL!! Someone on MySpace said Aspen called Edward jealous AND that she’s dating you!”
Paul stiffened.
Completely still.
Then shoved past Jacob so hard Jacob slammed against the wall.
“Move.”
“Paul—bro—WAIT,” Jacob tried, grabbing his arm, trying not to take offense. “Look, Aspen never said she’s dating you or me or anyone—don't freak out—”
Paul shoved him harder.
Jacob stumbled back, catching himself, frustration flaring.
Sam Uley appeared from the hallway, eyes already narrowed. “Paul. Breathe. We’re not doing this today.”
Paul didn’t even hear him.
He was halfway to the truck lot, pupils blown wide, movements jerky — territorial, volatile, a wolf pacing inside his bones with no name yet.
Jared sprinted after Sam. “Dude, Paul’s gonna explode. Sam, FIX IT.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose like a man carrying 500 years of stress.
“I am fixing it,” he muttered. “Barely.”
The storm of drama raged across town.
And Aspen?
Aspen was… oblivious.
Jasper Hale sat in Biology, posture immaculate, expression calm — but inside, he felt something tug at him.
Aspen.
Even from across campus, through walls, through the swarm of teenage hormones and cafeteria smells, he felt her emotional imprint like colors blooming out across water.
She was…
Giddy.
Soft.
Nervous.
And—
breaking her pencil for the third time.
He almost smiled.
Oh.
She was writing him back.
She had propped her notebook on her lap, hiding behind a textbook while the teacher droned on about mitochondria. Every emotion radiating from her was bright, fluttering, tender.
Not fear.
Not distress.
Not the drama swirling around her name like a storm cloud.
Just the quiet earnestness of a girl writing to someone she trusted.
Jasper exhaled slowly, letting her warmth settle into him like sunlight.
And he wondered — not for the first time — why this one strange, stubborn human girl could make him feel almost human too.
Aspen hunched over her desk in English class, she can't actually recall what class if she was honest with you, one knee bouncing, a cheap school pencil already worn down to a stub. She pressed her notebook flat and began writing her reply to Jasper in tight, messy handwriting.
Dear soldier,
You are strong. Stronger than you think. In my opinion, you haven’t attacked a single soul yet, even when you’ve wanted to. That takes more strength than the world gives you credit for.
She paused, chewing the edge of her pencil. Then wrote what she wished someone had once told her:
Maybe you need to hunt more. Not like the rest of your family — I think you need three times their hunts just to quiet the noise in your head. It’s not weakness. Some bodies need more fuel. Some hearts need more grounding.
You’re closest to the edge because you feel the world hardest. Maybe that’s why you still care about being good.
She smiled faintly, drawing a small doodle of a star beside the sentence.
Try walking around town at sunrise. Watch humans when they’re not looking. Notice their small kindnesses. Their clumsiness. Their joy. They aren’t meal tickets.
They’re… people. You are, too. Even if you don’t think so.
Her pencil snapped.
Again.
She muttered under her breath, grabbed another from her backpack, and kept writing, unaware of the emotional supernova brewing across Forks and La Push with her name in the center.
Without warning, Aspen’s world dropped into dark water.
Ink-black. Pressurized. Silent except for her own heartbeat.
Then—
Meyer.
Or the presence she associated with the author.
Playful. Soft. Echoing from everywhere and nowhere.
“Do you know the real reason you fell into my series?”
Aspen’s breath hitched. Her body remained frozen in the classroom, but her mind plummeted deeper.
She nodded numbly.
“Bayaq said I’m here to learn a lesson,” she muttered. “Duh.”
Meyer laughed.
A sound like ripples traveling through endless dark.
Aspen flinched. She hated that laugh.
And then—
Her father’s voice.
Loud. Sharp. So real she felt her stomach drop out from under her.
“Stop crying and read the book.”
Aspen’s fists curled, nails cutting her palms.
“That’s unfair,” she hissed at the void. “Using my trauma against me—what are you doing?”
Meyer’s tone dipped, amused and unbothered.
“You never told me you were a fan of my work. You had the whole series.”
“I was forced to read it!” Aspen spat, something hot rising in her chest. “You don’t get to tear me apart over that!”
“You weren’t meant to be here,” Meyer murmured. “Bayaq picked you because he needed someone full of hatred to enter this world.”
Aspen’s voice cracked.
“I don’t hate my father,” she said. “I just… I can’t stand him.”
Silence.
Then—warm hands. No, not hands. Presence.
Bayaq.
Lifting her out of the abyss like a parent scooping a child from deep water.
“Enough,” he said, voice rumbling like shifting mountains. “You don’t get to weaponize her pain. Not here.”
Meyer disappeared, the dark water draining.
And Aspen dropped back into her classroom seat, blinking hard, refusing to cry.
She forced her pencil back to the paper despite her trembling hand.
Aspen barely had time to take a breath before a shadow eclipsed her.
She didn’t need to look up to know.
Edward Cullen.
His eyes were dark, conflicted, and burning with a mix of indignation and something that looked suspiciously like panic.
“Aspen,” he said, too intense for a school hallway, “we need to talk—”
She groaned. Loud. Dramatic.
“Oh my GOD, Edward, I already told Emmett—”
But she didn’t get to finish.
Because the roar of a truck engine shook the windows.
Paul Lahote’s beat-up truck screeched into Forks High’s parking lot like he was filming a Fast & Furious spin-off.
The passenger door flew open.
“ASPEN!” he shouted from outside the building. “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!”
Students screamed.
Someone yelled, “OH MY GOD HE’S HERE FOR HER!”
Aspen blinked.
“…is this an 80s movie? Why does this feel like an 80s movie?”
But Paul did not sound like a lovesick heartthrob.
He sounded like a boy on the verge of accidental homicide.
Behind him, sprinting full speed:
Sam Uley, looking like a stressed dad.
Jacob, frantic, nearly tripping over his boots.
Jared, yelling, “SAM HE’S GOING TO COMMIT A FELONY PLEASE DO SOMETHING!”
Edward stared at this unfolding disaster with the same expression one might wear while watching a burglary in progress.
Aspen put her hands up.
“Okay, okay—EVERYBODY STOP—”
But nobody could hear her over:
Paul: “I NEED TO TALK TO HER RIGHT NOW—”
Jacob: “PAUL GET BACK HERE—”
Sam: “PAUL, IF YOU SCARE HER, SO HELP ME—”
Edward: “This is absurd.”
Students: recording everything on flip phones.
Far above (or below, or sideways), Bayaq folded his arms.
He watched Paul storm through Forks High with murder in his eyes and Edward malfunctioning like a Windows XP computer.
And he laughed.
“Meyer,” he said dryly, “your plotline is collapsing faster than your character development.”
Meyer’s faint outline flickered like a glitch.
“I didn’t do this.”
“No,” Bayaq said. “You just built a world on top of trauma and expected no one to bleed through the cracks.”
Meyer bristled.
“You’re using Aspen.”
“I am protecting Aspen,” Bayaq corrected, voice sharp. “From you. And from the destiny you shoved into her skull.”
He gestured toward Aspen, who was now trapped between Edward Cullen, a crowd of teenagers, and Paul Lahote who was storming toward her like an earthquake in sneakers.
“Because unlike you,” he added, “I actually care if she survives the story.”
There were many stages Aspen’s body fell into when danger hit —
freeze,
flight,
fawn,
and last, only when all else failed,
fight.
But no matter which one her body chose, there was always crying.
Not cute tears. Not cinematic droplets.
These were the silent tears that felt like years, tears that came from marrow and memory, tears that felt like her whole life collapsing through her throat.
And as she stood in the cracked concrete of the Forks High parking lot, cornered between Edward’s sharp marble presence and the crash of something she could not name inside her ribs, she felt something old wake inside her — something that had nothing to do with vampires or wolves.
It was the truth she hated most.
She knew why she was here.
She knew why she had fallen into the ocean of this world when she woke up drowning.
Because moments before her surgery back home — when she genuinely believed she might die — Aspen had prayed for a life again.
She had begged for something. Anything.
And this world had answered.
Not as a mercy.
But as a mirror.
She had lived for years with the weight of her father’s sins pressing like iron bars on her spine, guilt that was never hers, but she carried anyway. Shame that stuck to her teeth like metal. Trauma that curled into her bones and told her she would never be enough, never good, never healed.
She let the trauma steer her life.
She let fear chart her future.
She let silence be her safety.
And now she was dropped into a world she hated — a story she’d cried over at nine years old, begging her mother to throw the books away because her father had forced them into her hands.
She hated this series because it made brown rage the villain.
Because it made people who looked like her classmates, like her friends, like the kids from rez communities, into beasts.
Because it romanticized the wrong things.
Because deep down, she never related to Bella — she related to Leah Clearwater and the wolves, to their rage, to their grief.
And now she had to face them — her reflections — in the flesh.
Maybe she wasn’t here to save them.
Maybe she was here because someone wanted her to face herself.
Maybe faith came in the form of a girl who kept running.
And Aspen had always been a runner.
So, she ran.
Paul wasn’t prepared.
One moment he was storming into the Forks High parking lot, chest heaving, fury crackling beneath his skin like hot lightning, ready to fight whoever the hell had upset her—
And then Aspen slammed into him.
Hard.
Like a bird hitting a window. Like she couldn’t stop. Like she didn’t want to.
She crashed into his chest and the sound that tore from her wasn’t human — not a scream, not a sob — something strangled, empty, breaking.
Paul froze.
Her fists curled into the fabric of his shirt, gripping as if she’d drown without him. Her breath hitched in frantic, gasping little intakes. Her tears soaked through cotton and skin, warm and shaking.
She wasn’t crying like someone upset over high school drama.
She was crying like someone dying.
Like someone fighting off a panic attack with nothing but willpower and instinct.
“Hey—hey, hey,” Paul choked out, his voice suddenly small, rough, terrified in a way he’d never admit. “Aspen—what—what happened? Who—”
But her words came out broken, jumbled:
“I—I can’t do this teenage bullshit anymore— I can’t— we can— talk after school— just not— not now— Paul, please— I can’t—”
Her knees buckled.
Paul caught her before she hit the ground.
His arms wrapped around her, fierce and careful at the same time, his fingers pressing into the small of her back like he could shield her from the world.
The anger he’d felt minutes ago evaporated.
Gone.
Ashes.
Paul saw himself in her — the teenage rage, the survival instincts, the burning fuse of a temper that wasn’t truly anger but old pain trying to escape.
And he hated it.
He hated that she carried that alone.
He hated that this series — this stupid world — had thrown all of this at her.
He hated that she cried like she’d learned to cry quietly.
“Hey,” he whispered, forehead brushing her hair, voice trembling. “I got you. I’m right here. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Behind him, Jacob and Sam skidded to a stop.
Jacob’s face twisted in shock.
Sam’s in worry.
Jacob took a step forward — then stopped himself.
Sam raised his hand slightly, stopping him from interfering.
Paul held Aspen tighter.
This wasn’t about the feud anymore.
This was a girl breaking.
And Paul wasn’t letting her fall.
Somewhere beyond the parking lot — in the threads of the story itself — Bayaq laughed.
Not cruelly.
Triumphantly.
Like someone watching a weak foundation crack.
“You’re losing your own plot, Stephenie.”
Meyer hissed from the shadows of the narrative, voice thin and shaken.
“You’re only using her.”
“Funny,” Bayaq replied, “I could say the same. But unlike you, I don’t need her broken to tell a story. She isn’t a device. She’s a person.”
Meyer sputtered, indignant:
“She wasn’t even supposed to be here! I didn’t write her—”
“No,” Bayaq said.
“She wrote herself.
And that terrifies you.”
The world of Twilight flickered — just slightly — as Aspen’s tears hit Paul’s shirt.
Bayaq stepped back.
Letting her choose her next breath.
Letting her choose her next step.
Letting her choose her story.
Here you go — three POVs side-by-side, each distinct, each in-character, full Twilight-style melodrama, teenage chaos, and the mythic tension between Meyer and Bayaq simmering underneath.
I kept the pacing sharp, cinematic, and emotional.
Jessica Stanley had never seen anything like this outside of a Desperate Housewives pilot.
One minute she was scrolling through her brick-phone tapping out a text to Lauren about how Aspen had yelled at Edward earlier (“girl is ICONIC, Lauren, I swear!”), and the next there was an actual… a real… romantic parking-lot showdown unfolding in front of her.
Aspen ran — actually ran — into Paul Lahote’s arms like some tragic heroine in a Nicholas Sparks paperback. And Paul? The school’s collective brain froze watching him soften like melted chocolate.
Jessica’s jaw dropped.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, elbowing Angela so hard Angela squeaked.
“OH my GOD, Angela, that is— That’s ROMANCE. That is LIKE— feral-but-tender boyfriend material!”
Paul held Aspen with this protective, possessive energy Jessica had never seen in an actual teenager.
Not even Mike Newton attempted that level of emotionally complex hotness.
Forks High girls around her gasped in synchronized awe.
Lauren whispered, “Okay but… when did the rez boys get this hot?”
Someone else whispered, “Right? Like… why wasn’t I into Paul before? Is he available? He looks like someone who would ruin your life in a fun way.”
Jessica sucked in a breath.
“Oh my GOD,” she said again. Because she suddenly realized something horrifying and fascinating:
Aspen had just made half the school develop crushes on all the rez boys at the same time.
Like a plague.
A sexy plague.
Even Jacob and Jared and Embry, standing awkwardly behind Sam, suddenly looked like forbidden YA-novel love interests.
And Edward Cullen?
He looked like a jealous Victorian ghost.
Jessica blinked.
Was Edward… competing? For attention?? Over Aspen??
“Oh this is gonna be SUCH a wild week,” she breathed, thrilled.
Edward froze when Aspen collapsed against Paul.
Her cries weren’t soft.
They were shattering.
And her thoughts—
They hit him like a wildfire.
I’m not a teenager anymore—
Why is God doing this to me—
Will I be the death of Paul—
Her mind wasn’t like some the girls soft background hum.
It was sharp, electric, ancient and exhausted all at once.
Edward staggered back like he’d been struck.
He didn’t expect guilt.
Or fear.
Or the sick twist of protectiveness that felt like a violin string pulled too tight in his chest.
He hated seeing her cry.
He hated seeing Paul touch her with such familiarity.
He hated—
He hated that Jessica Stanley was thinking, Wait is Edward jealous? OMG that is so hot.
He hated it all.
He took a step forward, but Emmett’s mental voice practically screamed through the hallway:
BRO STOP. She is having a PANIC ATTACK. You barreling in will not HELP.
Edward still moved—fast, tense, storming toward a sophomore who was already texting someone on the rez.
Too late.
And Edward watched Aspen crumble against him, watched Paul wrap his arms around her, steady her, ground her—
And Edward’s jealousy nearly fractured the pavement.
Jared Cameron swore he only came because Sam told him to.
He fully expected to drag Paul back by the hood of his jacket, lecture him, and prevent a felony.
He did NOT expect to witness Paul freaking Lahote going full:
soothing voice, forehead touch, hand-at-the-back, breathing-with-her boyfriend mode.
Jared blinked.
“Bro what the hell,” he whispered under his breath. “When did Paul become… gentle?”
Jacob looked equally confused.
Sam looked tired, but resigned.
And Aspen?
Aspen was curled into Paul’s chest like he was the only stable place in the universe.
Jared scratched the back of his neck.
“…Dude. His witchy girlfriend is crying. I can’t… I can’t interrupt that. That feels like—bad luck. Or a curse. Or something.”
Jacob shot him a look.
“Witchy?”
“You felt the vibes too, bro,” Jared muttered. “She got that… mystical meltdown energy.”
Sam, pinching the bridge of his nose, finally stepped forward.
“Paul. You need to come back with us. School day isn’t over yet.”
Paul didn’t even look up.
“I’m not leaving her.”
Jared exhaled.
Yeah. Okay. They were screwed.
Forks High students were staring like this was a season finale reveal.
Some girls whispered, “Omigod the tension— is Edward trying to compete with Paul?? For her?!”
Jared sighed.
“Great. Aspen unleashed the Rez version of a boy band. They’re all… hot now. And wanted. This is gonna be a problem.”
Between choking breaths against Paul’s chest, Aspen felt it.
That weird ripple in the air.
The shift.
She looked up and saw:
Forks girls staring.
Edward twitching.
Jacob confusedly running a hand through his hair.
Jared looking overwhelmed.
Paul holding her like she belonged there.
And Aspen had a horrifying, soul-crushing epiphany:
She had made these boys desirable.
She had accidentally made them more relatable.
More human.
More attractive.
To the teens who couldn’t tell the difference between obsession and romance.
To the dramatic, delusional, Tumblr-core girls. (Aspen been there before- yikes still is you count her total drama fanfictions)
“Oh shit,” Aspen whispered into Paul’s chest.
Because suddenly the Cullen boys and the wolf boys weren’t distant icons.
They were crushable.
And that meant chaos.
Far beyond the parking lot, in the place stories were bones and breath, Meyer folded her arms.
“I want a truce,” she said.
“I want a happy ending for Bella and Edward.”
Bayaq yawned, bored, leaning back in the void as if it were a hammock.
“Why not?” he said lazily.
“Take it. Have your silly star-crossed ending.”
His eyes glinted.
“If your precious Edward can survive Aspen.
And me.”
Meyer stiffened.
“…You’re toying with me.”
“Obviously,” Bayaq replied, stretching.
“But the offer stands.”
Meyer hesitated, uncertainty cracking her polished certainty.
“I’ll… think about it.”
“Do that,” Bayaq murmured, smiling.
Because Aspen had just changed the entire story.
And Meyer knew it.
Notes:
I have chosen a messy and unhappy ending for everyone mostly Aspen who will be grateful when Bella actually comes to town!
She will be like thank fucking God I don't want deal with this alone anymore or deal with this fucking dude anymore! Aspen pointing at Edward!
Maiden your lame brooding soulmate makes me want to choke him out a lot, in fact I hate him- I don't like him at the moment- also I want to hang out with Paul and the others again, but this dude doesn't fuck off!
I am still on my meds, I am creative as fuck, but more tired as fuck! (My job and school so fucking much for me)
TAKE YOUR MEDS PLEASE YUM YUM YUMMY STABLE MIND
Chapter 9: The Author's Input
Summary:
I don't if Taylor Lautner would ever voice Jacob Black as an animation! I just know he needs more rest from that role lol- body issues, always being shirtless as a growing teen for a movie series, and everyone dogging on him after Twilight series must been tough!
Will not comment on the rest of the cast because I feel bad for them- some of them especially Kristien being told she can't act or do anything right as an actress...or I will not comment on the drama and bullshit of those years that cast.
I just think ugh- uh- you can't really hate a growing teenager forced to have a adult male strong "body" for having the role of the love interest that is supposed to be the bad guy and not the chosen one. My opinion also Meyer didn't want a diverse cast. EW. She said only whites here- (I mean) it's a rumor.
Notes:
I am making Aspen hungry teenage girl she will eat double worth Bella eats, it's scary though~
Bella and Aspen trying hang out eating takeout Aspen orders two meals for herself and kid sized for Bella because she damn knows Miss Swan will be full or get upset tummy if eating too much!
Do you think Bella has IBS?
Do you think Bella would be an almond mom is she was still human?
Or do you think Bella has probably has bad eating habits because of her mother's neglect?
Aspen eyeing Bella heavy this bitch doesn't fucking eat- she needs to eat!
(Aspen from her Mexican motherly instincts) Bella fucking eat- I made you double plate to take home one for your dad and one for you- please eat this- you too skinny- Bella please eat, you are a growing girl- you need brain fuel!
Bella shaking how did you- break into Edward's car?!
Aspen shhh- just warm it up later, okay? Oh shit- I gotta go before Edward finds me!
Aspen just being chaotic being in human form
No romance for Aspen just chaos
Everyone else this girl is fucking weird watching Aspen run around with open mouth to catch rainwater and Edward is like let's kill her, right?
Everyone else- no- no- that's too far, dude, bro why are like this, Edward you good?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Rosalie Hale rarely enjoyed lunchtime at Forks High.
Lines of teenagers, cheap perfume, insecure minds buzzing like static—
and Edward being dramatic.
But today?
Today was delicious.
Edward paced like a frantic Victorian widower denied his mourning portrait. His jealousy flared so loudly Rosalie swore she could taste it in the air.
She crossed her legs, leaned back in her seat in the cafeteria, and lifted a perfectly plucked eyebrow in amusement.
So, this was Edward’s first human nemesis in a century.
Aspen.
A girl who:
-
did not fawn for him
-
did not swoon
-
did not blush prettily
-
did not see him as a romantic tragic hero
-
had confidence
-
had opinions
-
had the nerve to yell at him in public
-
and worst of all—for Edward’s ego—clearly preferred a wolf boy with anger issues
Rosalie smirked.
Serves him right.
For so long, Edward rejected every woman who wasn’t a doe-eyed martyr. He rejected women like Rosalie—women who were beautiful and knew it, women who had power and demanded respect, women who did not bend themselves into emotional origami for his approval.
Aspen reminded her of that.
Rosalie watched through the cafeteria windows.
Aspen was out in the parking lot, sitting cross-legged on the hood of Paul Lahote’s beat-up truck.
Paul sat beside her, eating sandwiches like they were on a date but also planning a heist.
Teenagers.
Rosalie could hear them clearly if she wanted to; Aspen’s voice carried, Paul’s heart was loud, but she deliberately tuned the world out.
They deserved privacy.
Her golden eyes drifted instead over the rest of Forks High.
Girls were whispering.
Boys were staring.
Jessica Stanley looked like she was narrating the entire saga in her head.
Rosalie pressed her lips together, torn between judgment and a strange melancholy.
She didn’t miss humanity.
But she missed the possibility of it.
The messiness, the chaos, the uncomplicated emotions. The way teenagers could fall apart without consequence.
Rosalie watched Aspen laugh through lingering tears, nudging Paul’s shoulder, wiping her face with her sleeve.
Human.
Raw.
Alive.
Something Rosalie could never be again.
Behind her, Alice was chattering desperately.
“Edward, listen—the future hasn’t changed! She’s still human, you’re overreacting, please just—”
Edward snapped, “She was crying, Alice. Crying.”
Jasper and Emmett were stuck between them as referees.
Emmett had the audacity to whisper to Jasper:
Dude, this is the most fun we’ve had in DECADES.
Rosalie ignored all of them.
Edward was spiraling.
Alice was over-optimistic.
Jasper was resigned.
Emmett was entertained.
None of them saw what Rosalie saw:
Aspen wasn’t simply disrupting the story.
She was threatening Edward’s image of himself.
And Rosalie enjoyed that more than she morally should.
Stephanie Meyer sat alone in her study, rubbing her temples.
Four weeks.
Four weeks since everything started… bending.
It began with a blog post from a long-time Twilight fan who received an early preorder of Jacob Black’s Perspective Edition and claimed the opening chapters were wrong.
Different.
Out of character.
Too angry.
Too raw.
Too… real.
Meyer had blamed the printer.
Or the editor.
Or a file mix-up.
Then Netflix called.
The animated Twilight project was slowing down because of “voice actor complications.”
The wolves—FINALLY getting indigenous casting—needed new actors.
Taylor Lautner declined to reprise Jacob, politely but firmly.
“I’m focused on my wife and family.
Also… that role hurt me.
I was sexualized at sixteen.
I don’t want to relive that.”
Stephanie had smiled professionally.
Then hung up, trembling.
Fans online caught wind.
Soon people were asking why teen characters hadn’t been protected in the original films.
Why adult actors played minors in shirtless scenes.
Why the depiction of the Quileute was inaccurate.
Then the real Quileute Nation made a statement—gentle but firm—reminding people:
-
they were not werewolves
-
they did not have war stories with vampires
-
they had been harmed by being mythologized
-
they received NO financial benefit from the Twilight franchise
-
tourists trespassed on their cemetery after the films
-
their cultural stories had been taken without permission
Meyer slammed her laptop shut.
“It wasn’t that bad,” she muttered.
“I made them popular. I brought interest. I helped them.”
But four weeks ago?
Things began changing inside her manuscripts.
Dialogue shifting.
Scenes rewriting themselves.
Jacob’s emotions sharpening.
The wolves gaining agency she hadn’t written.
And somewhere in the margins of her mind, she felt something watching.
Bayaq.
She’d tried to tell herself it was stress.
Or a deadline.
Or an overactive imagination.
But Aspen?
Aspen wasn’t her creation.
Aspen didn’t belong.
And if Aspen was there…
if Bayaq sent her…
What else could change?
Meyer clenched her fists.
She wasn’t ready to accept that she had done harm.
She wasn’t ready to accept that her world wasn’t hers anymore.
She wasn’t ready to give Bayaq an answer.
Not yet.
Aspen tore a piece of her sandwich in half, her hands still trembling slightly from the earlier panic.
Turkey, cheese, gluten-free bread, too much mustard.
Paul’s plate was messier: two burgers, fries, an energy drink that made Aspen’s stomach hurt just looking at it.
Paul nudged her knee with his.
“You’re quieter than usual.”
Aspen swallowed.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Paul frowned.
“Babe. You’re not—”
“No. Listen.”
She breathed in deeply.
Forks air tasted like rain and unresolved plot holes.
“Being near me might get you killed,” Aspen whispered.
“Meyer’s pissed I’m here. Bayaq says I’m part of a lesson. And if she wants Edward to stay her perfect golden boy? She might try to… remove obstacles.”
Paul blinked.
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
Aspen nodded.
Paul leaned back, stared at her for a long moment, then said:
“If someone—writer, vampire, God, whatever—thinks they can take you from me?
They can try.”
Aspen’s heart flipped painfully.
“I’m serious,” she nearly snapped.
“So am I.”
Paul nudged her sandwich back toward her.
“Eat, witch-girl. You’re shaking.”
Aspen wiped her eyes.
Paul wasn’t romantic.
He wasn’t flowery.
He wasn’t fragile like Edward.
He was blunt.
Warm.
Protective.
Human in all the ways Aspen needed.
She took another bite, throat tightening.
Because she felt it:
whatever was coming next was going to tear the plotline apart.
But for lunch—
for this moment—
Paul looked at her like she wasn’t a mistake or a danger.
Just a girl he wanted to sit with on his truck hood.
God, Aspen hated him so- she hated this fucking Paul being so fucking loyal unaware of the danger and the pain.
She hated he saw her like romantic interest instead of guide or tool to help Bayaq protect Paul and his people.
She hated that Paul didn't know better and still accepted her... she bets he thinks if stayed loyal it meant a happy ending for all them.
But she knows Paul belongs to Rebecca Black- ugh- stupid imprinting shit.
"belonged" to another
Yuck, should he have more freedom in this too.
She didn't want to date Paul- he was too- too fucking young also she didn't know how to break to him they can't like actually date ever.
Fuck.
Step one befriend Jasper
Step two don't get Paul killed
Step three don't get killed
Step four get a grip, stop spiraling every five seconds in this world!
Step five tell Jacob to not force anyone to love him, no forcing his tongue down anyone's throat, and not be a little bitch
Step six stop imprinting- kill off Sam? No- make Sam not see her until you find how to stop imprinting from happening
Step seven try to be with Charlie Swan? Wait- no- bad, Help make Edward less a problem when Bella comes into town by making him more friendly? Fucking I don't know- make sure Edward doesn't gaslight Bella?
Step eight don't become a child bride
Step nine don't die being a hero
Step ten make sure the people of the reservation are safe at all times!
Step eleven don't let James hurt Bella?!
Yeah, that's a good plan, right?
Paul had never, in his entire almost sixteen years, witnessed someone casually ruin an entire religion, a bestselling YA franchise, and their own sandwich at the same time.
Aspen talked with her mouth full — not disgustingly, just… passionately.
A spicy chicken wrap? A lemon Snapple? Some kettle chips she kept shoving into Paul’s hand mid-rant like he needed to stay properly fueled for “the stupidest supernatural love triangle in literary history.”
“…and then Meyer tries to say vampires can’t have bodily fluids,” Aspen muffled into her wrap, “BUT Edward somehow gets Bella pregnant?? Like—be so serious. God had to look at this manuscript and go, ‘Girl, no.’”
Paul made a quiet huff of laughter, wolf instincts buzzing like a warm hum under his skin.
Not flaring — not aggressive — just… aware.
Aware of Aspen.
Her scent.
Her heartbeat.
Her comfort sitting beside him like she wasn’t afraid of what he was.
It felt like having a packmate beside him.
Someone he could trust instantly.
Someone who radiated loyalty without trying.
Someone who didn’t treat him like a monster.
The wolf didn’t know the difference yet — between romance and belonging.
Between wanting someone and recognizing a future pack sister.
Paul wasn’t sure he did either.
He just knew being next to her felt like stepping into shade after sunburn.
Like safety.
“…and don’t get me started on the Mormon metaphors,” Aspen added, crunching a chip. “The plot hole to morality pipeline was insane.”
Paul believed every word.
Her absurd explanations.
Her dramatized reenactments of movie scenes.
Her violent side-eyes at Edward Cullen in the distance like she was trying to break his telepathy by willpower alone.
And even the wolf — ancient instinct, not emotion — agreed:
Aspen was truth.
Aspen was right.
Aspen was theirs.
Stephanie Meyer stared at her corkboard like it had personally betrayed her.
Red string.
Sticky notes.
Screenshots of fan forum posts accusing her of “minor continuity glitches” and “sudden cultural competency.”
She knew better.
This was Bayaq’s doing.
And Aspen’s arrival only confirmed it.
Four weeks ago, she first saw the ripple — Jacob Black’s narration changing on its own inside a printed copy. A fan thought it was a misprint.
Then the Netflix animation deal erupted.
Taylor Lautner saying no — politely, firmly — but the internet turning it into a war cry:
“Teen characters should be voiced by teens.”
“Quileute characters should be voiced by Quileute actors.”
“No more sexualizing minors.”
As if she had done something wrong.
She had helped them.
She had saved the tribe.
They had tourism now.
Why wasn’t that enough?
Why was Bayaq acting like she had personally drained the life force of the entire Quileute people through YA merchandising?
Meyer frowned harder at her chart of “Narrative Necessities”:
-
Imprinting: “to preserve the wolf soul-mate mechanism,” she muttered.
-
Love Triangle: essential, obviously.
-
Bella + Edward endgame.
-
Jacob suffering tastefully for character development.
-
Vampires sparkling. Non-negotiable.
-
Bella must choose immortality for love, not logic.
And worst of all:
Aspen must not interfere.
Aspen must not derail Edward’s fated love.
Aspen must not kill him.
Her greatest fear wasn’t Bayaq’s threat.
It was Aspen’s existence.
Still… the trickster offered a truce.
A wager.
A chance to keep her original ending — if Edward survived both Aspen and Bayaq.
Meyer didn’t trust it.
But she couldn’t deny the temptation.
She would think on it.
Plot.
Plan.
Prepare.
Fate could bend — she’d bent it once already.
She could do it again.
Paul hopped off his truck, wiping crumbs off his hands like he was preparing for war.
Aspen called after him, confused but amused.
Edward stiffened the moment Paul approached — the wolf energy spiking his senses, the scent of pack radiating like electricity.
Paul leaned in just close enough for Edward alone to hear:
“You better learn your place in this world. You’re not just a love interest—you’re a threat to my people.”
Edward froze.
Paul smirked.
And then—
“Also,” Paul added, raising a brow, “your brooding sucks. Page 134 of the first book? You sound like a Victorian man having a breakdown after touching ankle.”
Edward blinked once.
Twice.
Three times.
He had absolutely no idea what that meant.
Jasper, however, choked on a laugh from twenty feet away.
He missed duels.
Honor.
Real conflict.
Teenagers were… disappointing.
Except Paul.
Paul had potential.
Jasper felt it — the shift of fate, the pull of attention — before he even saw it in his locker.
A folded note.
His name in Aspen’s handwriting.
A tiny jolt of something thrilling and unfamiliar hit him.
War-mercy-courtly affection?
Youthful nostalgia?
Hope?
He didn’t know.
But he pocketed the note like it was the first real thing he’d been given in years.
Stephanie Meyer’s study looked like a shrine, a bunker, a war room, and a scrapbook all fused into one space where no oxygen ever fully circulated.
Piles of annotated manuscripts.
Twenty-seven printouts of the original Twilight outline taped to the walls.
A corkboard covered in neon tabs labeled:
“Bella Must Choose Edward.”
“Edward Must Remain Morally Pure.”
“Jacob = Red Herring.”
“Imprinting Solves Everything.”
“Vampires Sparkle (Canon, Biblical, Don’t Fight Me).”
“Quileute Legends = Aesthetic Worldbuilding.”
Stacks of fan letters — some lovingly delusional, some furious, some asking if she’d ever considered speaking to the Quileute Nation before writing an entire mythos about them (she hadn’t responded).
Her laptop glowed with an open Google Doc titled:
“WAGER TERMS — For Trickster Interference, Draft 12.”
She typed, deleted, retyped, whispered under her breath, argued with herself, and paced the floor wearing mismatched socks and a cardigan with a hole in the elbow.
Meyer believed — fully, passionately, stubbornly — that certain things made Twilight Twilight:
1. Bella and Edward are Endgame.
This was not negotiable.
Without them, the entire structure collapsed.
It wasn’t a vampire story; it was her version of eternal, transcendent devotion.
2. Jacob Must Suffer Productively.
Character growth. Emotional tug-of-war.
The triangle raised the stakes.
“Pain builds investment,” she muttered as she highlighted it twice.
3. Imprinting Is Necessary.
She believed this wholeheartedly.
Without imprinting, the wolves lacked purpose.
Without imprinting, the soul-bond metaphor didn’t work.
Without imprinting… she’d have to explain healthy relationships.
She wasn’t prepared for that.
4. Bella Must Become a Vampire.
Not for power.
Not for destiny.
Not for selfhood.
But for love — the sacrifice that defined her.
Meyer viewed this as the “purest romantic arc ever written,” entirely missing the irony.
5. The Cullens Must Be the Moral Center.
Beautiful.
Perfect.
Self-controlled.
A fantasy of goodness despite monstrous capability.
The wolves — to her — were rustic contrast, not equals.
6. Edward Must Never Lose.
Not to Jacob.
Not to fate.
And especially not to some random girl named Aspen conjured by an irritated trickster spirit.
Which brought her back to the wager.
She wrote them meticulously, like commandments:
TERM 1 — Edward Survives.
No loopholes.
No metaphorical deaths.
No alternate-universe tragedies.
TERM 2 — Edward Ends Up with Bella Swan.
Their romance must remain central, untouched, unaltered.
TERM 3 — Bella Must Still Become a Vampire.
Her transformation cannot be avoided or replaced.
TERM 4 — Jacob Must Imprint (Canonically).
Meyer insisted this was necessary for his story to “make sense.”
TERM 5 — The Wolves Cannot Reject Their Roles.
No rebellions.
No rejecting pack law.
No choosing human paths.
TERM 6 — Aspen Cannot Claim or Influence Edward’s Fate.
Aspen may disrupt.
She may irritate.
She may exist.
But she must not replace Bella, save Edward, or steal his story arc.
TERM 7 — Meyer Retains Control of Canon.
Even if Bayaq interfered, even if the world changed, the core of Twilight must stay hers.
She stepped back, read over the list, and waited for the uneasy pride to settle.
Then she whispered aloud to the still air:
“It’s not like I did anything wrong. I told their stories beautifully. Respectfully. Lovingly.”
A silence followed.
Even she didn’t believe herself.
Edward Cullen was in a foul, simmering, silently murderous mood — which was impressive, considering vampires weren’t supposed to get headaches.
Yet he had one.
A phantom pressure blooming right behind his perfect temples.
Because Aspen — Aspen, of all creatures — had left an art project drying on the classroom display wall.
And it was of Alice.
Not a simple portrait.
Not a doodle.
Not a casual sketch.
No.
It was a swirling illusion piece — watercolor, chalk, subtle lightplay — of Alice moving through wind, hair rippling like she was dancing in colors that shouldn’t even exist on cheap school art supplies.
Alice was ecstatic.
Actually, twirling with the drawing, insisting the wind “felt right,” and giggling with a cluster of girls:
Jessica.
Lauren.
Angela.
Half the freshman class.
Even Nurse Greer from the front office.
Everyone thought Aspen was brilliant.
Kind.
Funny.
Talented.
Mysterious.
And apparently generous enough to hand out mini art cards to people she barely knew.
Edward’s internal monologue was… unhinged:
Why is she giving everyone artwork?
Why did she draw Alice so beautifully—too beautifully—dangerously beautifully?
Why is every girl in this building suddenly thinking about Paul Lahote?
Why is every boy in this building suddenly wondering if Aspen will sketch them next?!
He could hear the thoughts:
“Aspen should draw ME next.”
“Paul checking on her was so HOT.”
“Maybe guys from La Push are cute actually…”
“Edward looks bothered… should I flirt with Paul?”
“Aspen’s like… kind of magic?”
Edward hated it.
All of it.
Worst of all:
Aspen had accidentally raised Paul and the Rez boys into Forks High’s romantic awareness.
They were now hot commodities — mysterious, protective, loyal, different, forbidden.
Edward didn’t know whether to be annoyed at Aspen for shifting the social balance…
…or annoyed at himself for caring at all.
He stared at the painting again.
Did he like it?
Yes.
But he refused to like that he liked it.
His aesthetic judgment clawed for any flaw:
“The shading is uneven—no, it’s stylized.”
“The perspective is imperfect—no, it flows intentionally.”
“The palette is too warm for Alice—except it suits her joy.”
Edward Cullen was losing an art critique battle with a teenage girl.
And worse:
Jasper had that note from Aspen tucked in his pocket, humming with sentimental meaning Edward couldn’t yet decipher.
He was surrounded.
Outmaneuvered.
Outshone.
Out-arted.
And Aspen hadn’t even spoken to him today. (Well in way he wanted)
Bayaq read the pages without touching them.
The papers levitated in front of him, rustling like leaves caught in a breeze that wasn’t real. They spun, flipped, and snapped in the air as if the words themselves were offended.
Meyer’s list was ambitious.
Arrogant.
Deliciously stupid.
Which, frankly, was his favorite flavor of mortal overconfidence.
“Ahhh… she really thinks she’s bargaining with a devil,” Bayaq mused. “But she is praying to a god.”
His eyes gleamed with mischievous, ageless mirth.
Stephanie Meyer believed she had cornered him.
Her terms were rigid, self-congratulatory, self-serving—
and most hilariously:
She thought he would accept them at face value.
Not because she was powerful.
Not because she was clever.
But because she operated under the delusion that stories belonged to their authors rather than their characters.
Bayaq let her believe it.
He snapped his fingers.
The pages curled into smoke.
“Very well,” he murmured aloud, knowing Meyer would hear it in a dream later.
“You may have your ‘endgame,’ your ‘moral center,’ your sparkly boy, your soulmates.”
Then his voice softened into a wicked hum:
“But the meaning of those things? The shape? The path? The price?”
He smiled slowly.
“That belongs to me.”
For he had bigger plans—plans Meyer would never see coming because she looked backward, not forward.
And the world she wrote in?
It was no longer static.
It lived.
His First Moves — Unspoken to Meyer
1. Protect His People.
Meyer would not know this, but the wolves already felt the shift.
Fur thicker.
Instincts sharper.
Bonds electing to form through choice, not fate.
2. Imprinting Was Under Reconstruction.
Not erased —
but re-forged.
No more infants.
No more predestination.
No more “romantic destiny” forced on teenagers.
Imprinting, in Bayaq’s new world, would require mutual recognition and the consent of both souls.
A soulmate bond between equals.
Meyer would assume it stayed the same.
She would be wrong.
3. Happy Endings Would Happen — But Not Hers.
They would be earned.
Shared.
Balanced.
Not predetermined by an author's old biases.
4. Aspen Was His Wild Card.
Meyer feared Aspen would kill Edward.
Bayaq knew Aspen wouldn’t.
But she would force the Cullens — especially Edward — to confront things Meyer never let them feel:
Morality.
Guilt.
Curiosity.
Humanity.
And that?
That was far more dangerous than death.
Bayaq chuckled, reclining in a chair that wasn’t there a moment ago.
Let Meyer believe she’d won.
Let her think her canon was safe.
He thrived in the space between certainty and collapse.
After School — Aspen Revealed
Edward found Aspen outside the art building, searching under a wooden bench with the defeated slump of someone whose day had collapsed quietly on top of her.
He’d come to critique her outfit again — a habit he wasn’t proud of — but froze when he noticed the details.
Her outfit:
-
A soft oversized cream sweater with fraying cuffs
-
A pleated charcoal skirt that reached mid-thigh
-
A messy side braid coming undone from the panic earlier
-
Makeup smudged around her lower lash line like she had cried but hid it
-
A charity pin on her sweater that read “PLEASE BE PATIENT — I’M TRYING.”
But the most jarring detail:
She was barefoot.
Her socks were missing.
Her legs were red from the cold pavement.
And worse—
he smelled infection.
Her stitches — the ones she had claimed were from a “bear attack” — were angry, swollen, and seeping beneath the loose collar of her sweater.
He caught glimpses:
-
jagged marks at her shoulder curves
-
deep puncture scars along her neck
-
scratches wrapping toward her ribs
-
three long healed gashes partially visible along her spine
Not a bear attack.
Not remotely.
His throat tightened.
His self-control wavered.
Whoever did this to her was either a newborn vampire…
…or someone who wanted her dead but didn’t finish the job.
Edward stepped toward her despite himself.
“Your shoes,” he said quietly, “are missing.”
She looked up slowly, eyes unfocused, smaller than he remembered.
Four-foot-five.
Shivering.
Frightened in a numb, exhausted way he recognized too well.
“Somebody stole my shoes,” she whispered, voice paper-thin.
“I don’t… I don’t even know how.”
Edward blinked.
She wasn’t dramatic.
She was genuinely confused.
She swallowed hard, gathering what little courage she had left.
“Edward?”
Her voice fractured.
“Can you… maybe… help me find them? My backpack too? My socks?”
Edward looked down at her, his judgment dissolving into something far older and far heavier:
Concern.
Recognition.
Guilt he didn’t yet understand.
Aspen, shaking in cold wind, barefoot and stitched together and trying desperately not to fall apart…
…was the first human girl he had seen in a century who didn’t fear him but needed help, truly help, not romance, not awe, not obsession.
He nodded once, more quietly than she expected.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’ll help you.”
But inwardly, he already knew:
Someone didn’t steal her shoes.
Someone took them to see what she would do.
Someone was testing her.
Someone was testing him.
She didn’t remember falling asleep.
One moment she was in her study, surrounded by merchandise sketches and draft printouts and her “Requested Changes” list for the Netflix animation deal…
…and the next—
She was in a forest.
Not a rainy Washington forest.
A real one—ancient, humming, alive with a pulse she didn’t like.
A drumbeat.
A heartbeat.
A laugh.
Then a figure appeared, not walking but simply existing where she wasn’t looking a second earlier.
Bayaq.
He sat cross-legged on a carved stump, shrouded in shadow and painted light, as if ten different versions of him flickered through the same body.
Meyer stiffened.
He looked like a legend she once skimmed on Wikipedia and promptly forgot, except now the legend stared back with a grin that stretched the dream around her.
“You brought your terms,” Bayaq said, amused.
“Good. Mortals rarely come prepared.”
She opened her mouth to defend herself—
But the forest shifted.
Her study desk appeared beside her.
Her favorite pen.
Her mug.
And then—
A longhouse.
A shoreline.
Wolves carved in wood.
A grandmother’s voice telling stories in a language Meyer never learned.
Her dream was no longer hers.
It was his.
Bayaq tilted his head, expression playful yet ancient.
“You wanted a neutral meeting space,” he teased.
“So, I decorated.”
Meyer recoiled.
“This is not what I meant—”
“Oh, I know,” he said lightly. “But this is where all stories began for my people. Before paper. Before publishing. Before… your interpretation.”
She flushed in embarrassment and anger.
Bayaq ignored it.
“So,” he said, clapping his hands once.
“Your demands. Your… ‘terms.’ You want Edward and Bella together. You want your imprinting system untouched. You want your triangle with Jacob. You want your love story preserved.”
She nodded sharply.
“Yes. That’s the essence of my story.”
Bayaq leaned forward, eyes burning gold.
“But you misunderstand, Stephanie Meyer. I am not here to steal your story.”
His grin widened.
“I am here to liberate it.”
The forest pulsed with his power.
“You may have your happy ending,” he purred.
“You may have your lovers reunited.
Your vampire prince.
Your mortal girl.”
Then, with a dangerous softness:
“But the journey?
The scars?
The price?
The meaning… will be rewritten.”
Meyer’s heart lurched.
“What does that mean?”
Bayaq winked.
“Think about it.”
And the dream shattered.
She woke gasping at her desk—her coffee cold, her notes scattered, her pen snapped in half.
Edward walked quickly, Aspen shuffling behind him barefoot on tile.
He followed the scent trail, but something was wrong.
Aspen’s backpack scent drifted in a dozen directions at once.
Her shoes faded and reappeared like someone was intentionally masking them.
Her socks smelled faintly of—
Smoke?
“Strange,” Edward murmured.
Aspen sneezed hard behind him.
Then again.
Then again.
Her whole frame shook with each one.
He slowed, turning.
“You’re ill.”
“No,” she said, though she was absolutely lying.
“My stitches just… sting. And I think the air vents hate me.”
He noticed then: she kept absently scratching one shoulder until she winced.
The infection was worse than he thought.
“Aspen,” Edward said, tone low, “what happened to your things? Did someone take them from your locker?”
She shook her head, braid slipping down her shoulder.
“I—I don’t know. After last class I went to the restroom, looked down… and boom. No shoes. No socks. No backpack.”
Another sneeze.
“Like a magic trick.”
Edward froze.
Magic trick.
No human prankster could hide multiple scents so deliberately.
And Aspen was too new, too small, too tired to notice she was walking through a constructed maze of altered smells.
Bayaq.
The thought pulsed in Edward’s mind like thunder.
He was testing them.
Testing her, yes—
but testing Edward even more.
Edward swallowed his frustration.
“Your stitches,” he said quietly.
“They’re infected. How did you get them wet?”
“Oh!” Aspen frowned, rubbing the back of her neck and head awkwardly.
“Um… I kinda jumped into La Push ocean when I was with Paul and others? And the lake? I didn’t think about the stitches part until after.”
Edward stared at her.
“You… jumped into freezing ocean water with healing injuries?”
She shrugged miserably.
“Paul said I wouldn’t do it. So I did it. I’m stupid. Whatever.”
Edward exhaled slowly through his nose.
She wasn’t stupid.
She was grieving, reckless, lonely, traumatized, overwhelmed.
And somehow… she reminded him of a human life he barely remembered yet felt guilty for abandoning.
“Aspen,” he said, softer than before, “you’re not stupid.”
She blinked up at him, stunned, like no adult had said that to her in years.
He looked away before she could read too much in his expression.
Back to the hunt.
He lifted his chin and inhaled sharply.
The backpack scent suddenly shifted—
as if moved by an unseen hand.
Then, faintly, a whisper like a laugh brushed his senses.
Not a vampire.
Not a human.
Something older.
The trickster was leading him somewhere.
Edward clenched his jaw.
“Stay close,” he told Aspen.
“Whoever did this… didn’t do it alone.”
Meyer jolted awake a second time, breath thin, heart pounding like she’d been sprinting through her own subconscious. She sat upright in her office chair — she must’ve fallen asleep rewriting the contract — and the sensation of Bayaq lingered like smoke. Or incense. Or a warning.
Because this time, Bayaq had added things.
The “fine print.”
In the dream she’d found herself back in the same cabin-in-the-woods visionscape Bayaq had made for her — except now it was even more him.
-
Charcoal smudges decorated the walls in the shape of Thunderbird wings.
-
The air buzzed with drumbeats under her feet.
-
A carved mask sat on the table that definitely hadn’t been there before.
-
The dream smelled like cedar, stormwater, and wet fur.
Meyer hated it.
Bayaq knew she would. That was why he did it.
At the center of the cabin lay a giant “contract” — made of shifting sand, bark, and iridescent beetle-shells — spelling out the terms she’d agreed to add.
But the fine print glowed now, etched in looping, mischievous handwriting that shifted when her eyes moved.
And Bayaq’s voice, velvet and smoke, had whispered:
“You said yes. These… clarifications merely help you achieve your vision.”
Four reasons pulsed in Meyer’s mind, the four truths she was forced to admit to herself:
1. Meyer needed the series to stay alive exactly as she envisioned it.
If Aspen — or this trickster — derailed the story, the myth collapsed. Meyer feared losing control of the narrative that made her famous.
2. She still wanted Edward and Bella’s love to be untouchable. Divine. Fated.
She needed that couple to work, no matter how many plot holes she’d patched or ignored.
3. She believed imprinting was essential to keeping the universe “functional.”
The idea that soulmates were predetermined — that they served her system — gave her comfort. Structure. Order. Even if she knew people criticized it.
4. She was terrified of Aspen.
Not Aspen the girl — but Aspen the narrative disturbance. Aspen the one who might
-
kill Edward
-
break Bella’s destiny
-
and worst of all…
write a version of the world she liked better.
And Meyer would not allow a teenage OC to dethrone her.
So she signed the dream-contract.
Even though Bayaq had smiled with too many teeth.
Edward had not expected his day to end like this.
He’d planned to ignore Aspen. Or dislike her quietly. Or silently judge her fashion sense from a condescending distance.
But the moment school ended and he spotted her:
He froze.
She looked like someone had forgotten her.
Or like she’d forgotten herself.
Edward’s first reaction wasn’t compassion. It was judgment.
Why would she come to school in this condition? Did she not own other clothes? Does she not notice she is injured? Does she not—
Then Aspen looked up at him.
Her voice was quiet. Crushed. Ghost-soft.
“Somebody stole my shoes.”
Edward blinked. “…You don’t know how?”
Her eyes filled, but not with tears — with humiliated bafflement.
“I don’t even know when.”
He inhaled sharply. The scents around her were wrong. Her backpack’s scent trail ran in spirals, doubling back, fading abruptly like someone had deliberately interfered with it. It smelled like—
Like something outside the physical world had touched it.
But Aspen was shivering, rubbing at the stitches on her ribs.
Infected.
He exhaled tightly.
“Stop scratching,” Edward murmured — part command, part instinct — before he could stop himself.
She flinched like she was too tired to even argue.
Edward tried again, slower.
“Aspen… what happened to your shoulder?”
“I… um. I fell,” she mumbled.
Lie.
He kept his tone neutral. “And your shoes?”
“No clue. I just went into the restroom before the bell and—” She pointed at her feet helplessly. “Nothing.”
She sneezed. Hard.
She swayed.
Edward’s eyes narrowed. Human fever.
“You’re ill,” he said bluntly.
Aspen blinked up at him, dazed.
“Awe man… I think I’m getting sick. Ew.”
Edward almost snorted.
Almost.
Instead, he sighed and extended a hand.
“We’re tracking the scent. Come on.”
Edward felt her warmth pulsing too hot beside him as they walked through trees. Every few steps she sniffled, pushing her sleeves over her hands like a child.
“What exactly happened to your stitches?” he asked, voice too gentle for his own liking.
“Oh—uh… I jumped in La Push ocean,” she mumbled. “And a lake. And maybe rolled in sand one time. With Paul. And wolves.”
He stared at her.
“You… went swimming with open stitches?”
“I didn’t notice,” she whispered, shame dripping through the words.
That was when they found the first item:
A single off-white knee-sock with tiny bees knitted into the sides.
Edward lifted it by the cuff.
Aspen sighed like this was the saddest moment of her life.
“I liked those bees.”
“You need medical attention,” Edward said sharply. “Now.”
“After we find the shoes.”
“Aspen—”
She swayed again.
He caught her by the elbow, and for once she didn’t stubbornly jerk away.
She was barely her chaotic self. More… dull around the edges. Drained.
He hated how it made him feel: protective in a way he didn’t ask for.
“Aspen,” he said, voice lower. “Let me take you to Carlisle. Please.”
She blinked up at him. Slowly. Tired.
“…Okay.”
That scared him more than anything.
Trying to put her life — and her sock — back together
Aspen sat on the cold floor tiles near the school library doors; legs folded awkwardly to the side like a miserable Victorian child who’d been exiled from a painting.
Her left sock, the one with the knitted bees, felt impossibly complicated.
She tried to stretch it open.
Missed.
Tried again.
Missed again.
Her fingers felt thick and stupid, fever-slow, and the sock seemed to twist itself away at the last second, like it was mocking her.
Her eyes blurred.
God, she hated getting sick in this universe.
It always hit harder.
Felt heavier.
Felt unfair.
She finally managed to get the sock over her toes — sort of crooked, sort of inside out — and then looked up at Edward with a tired sigh that came from her soul.
“Can you at least find my other sock, my Mary Janes, and my backpack before we go to your house?”
Her voice sounded small. Less spark, less mischievous chaos. Just… exhausted.
Edward’s brows pulled together — that flat, disapproving line that said he wasn’t sure whether she was being unreasonable or simply falling apart.
Meanwhile Aspen was thinking:
I just want fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes alone after school. That’s all I wanted. But noooo, this stupid world said “let’s make your uterus explode AND steal your shoes.”
She pressed a hand over her lower stomach with a little wince.
Her period had started the exact moment everything had gone missing.
Coincidence?
In this world?
No.
She knew better.
She sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve (Edward visibly cringed), and dragged herself across the hallway like she was melting.
She sprawled out on the clean floor near the library, cheek pressed against the cold tile.
“Do you think my stuff is on the roof?”
Her voice was muffled.
“Or like… shoved between the walls? Or eaten by ghosts?”
Edward pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Aspen. Why would—”
“Because it’s Meyer,” she mumbled into the tiles.
He paused. Blinked.
“…Pardon?”
Aspen didn’t have the energy to unpack her multi-layered metaphysical beef with Stephanie Meyer.
Instead she just stared at the ceiling like it had betrayed her.
The fever made everything bright around the edges.
Her skin felt too hot.
Her stitches pulsed.
Her head hurt.
And somehow, she still managed to feel deeply, personally offended by the situation.
Someone didn’t just steal my shoes.
Someone stole my dignity. My arch support. My emotional support backpack. My snacks.
I am barefoot, I am bleeding, I am feverish… and I am in FORKS.
Somebody end me.
Edward crouched beside her, scent faintly irritated/concerned/Edward-ish.
“You cannot lie on the floor,” he said softly. “You’re burning up.”
Aspen didn’t move.
“I think the floor is my home now.”
He exhaled sharply.
“Aspen.”
“…floor.”
Her brain was so fuzzy she barely heard her own hopeless little whimper:
“I just… hate being sick here. Everything hits different. And I can’t even find my shoes.”
She sniffled again, and Edward winced like the sound personally offended his soul.
He gently lifted her to sitting.
“We’ll find your things,” he promised tightly. “Then I’m taking you to Carlisle.”
She swayed forward, forehead bonking lightly against his shoulder.
“Okay,” she whispered, small and defeated.
“Just… find the other sock first.”
Fever creeping in, filter slowly dying
Aspen slid back down onto the tile floor like her bones had turned into cooked spaghetti. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The world swayed. Her brain felt cotton-stuffed and floaty, and her mouth moved before she could stop it.
She stared up at the ceiling tiles.
“…you know what’s wild?” she muttered, voice mushy.
“No one… NO one in this universe has a normal hobby. Cullens don’t watch TV. They don’t read blogs. They don’t own a toaster.”
A freshman walking by slowed down, concerned.
Edward, several hallways away, stiffened.
Aspen belly-flopped onto her backpack-less back.
“And WHY,” she continued, raising a shaky finger toward the ceiling like it offended her personally,
“Why do vampires… go to HIGH SCHOOL… over and over? That is psychological torture. That is Guantanamo Bay level cringe.”
Someone down the hall snorted.
She rolled to her side, curls sticking to her fever-damp cheek.
“And Edward,” she mumbled, “oh my GOD, Edward. If his family wanted him to be normal, maybe they shouldn’t have let him marinate in 1918 feminism.”
Down the hall, Edward froze mid-step like someone had unplugged him.
Aspen kept going.
“And Carlisle?
Look, I love the man, but at some point he should ask himself:
‘Hmm, should I maybe stop collecting traumatized children like Pokémon?’”
A teacher passing by blinked, unsure whether to intervene.
“And don’t even get me STARTED on Alice and her visions. Girl runs a multiverse in her brain but can’t see a backpack thief in a public school. Suspicious!”
Her voice was getting faint, breathier, the fever rising, but she was relentless.
“And Rosalie —”
Aspen put a hand dramatically over her heart.
“Rosalie deserved better. Everyone else deserved worse. Facts.”
She groaned and slapped her cheek lightly, trying to stay conscious.
“And Emmett… baby boy… what do you even DO all day? Bench press trees? Wrestle bears? Have thumb wars with gravity?”
She sprawled again, cheek smushed to the tile.
“This universe makes NO sense,” she whispered.
“Meyer really said ‘vampires but make them Mormon glitter-lamps.’”
Edward nearly tripped in the hallway, hearing every word echoing in his skull.
Tracking a chaos gremlin’s belongings while being roasted in 4K
Edward forced himself to focus.
First item: the missing right sock.
The scent trail wound toward the science wing.
He found it dangling off the corner of a Bunsen burner like someone tried to dry it.
He stared at it, disturbed.
He picked it up reverently, despite Aspen’s insults echoing in his skull.
Marinate in 1918 feminism?
Multiverse in her brain?
Glitter-lamps?
He closed his eyes.
Breathed.
Counted to 10.
Next: Mary Jane #1 — cafeteria.
It was sitting neatly on a lunch table like it had been placed as an offering.
Students were taking pictures.
Mary Jane #2 — boys’ locker room.
It lay in front of the showers.
Edward did not dwell on the implications.
Finally: the backpack — teacher’s lounge vent.
Shoved deep inside.
Impossible for a human.
Impossible for a student.
Not impossible for someone meddling with the narrative.
Edward narrowed his eyes.
This is deliberate.
He turned on his heel, ready to return to Aspen—
—only to hear her voice from down the hall:
“AND WHY DOES NO ONE LOCK THEIR WINDOWS IN FORKS? IS THIS A CULTURAL THING?!?”
He shut his eyes in silent despair.
Bayaq lounged in the liminal space between realities, perched on the border of story and author.
He held Meyer’s “terms” like fragile paper that would burn if he rolled his eyes any harder.
Meyer thought she’d made rules.
Meyer thought she’d won.
He smirked — a slow, ancient curl of amusement.
Oh, she had no idea.
Edward was already off-script.
Aspen existed outside Meyer’s structure entirely.
And the wolves… ah.
The wolves were stirring.
Bayaq tapped a claw lightly against the fabric of the world.
“Let the little ones feel it,” he whispered.
“A warning. A promise. A shift.”
Wolf instincts flicker awakes
Jacob – kitchen, helping Billy cook
Jacob was chopping onions when something inside his chest flushed hot — then cold — then hot again.
He gasped and dropped the knife.
Billy turned his head sharply.
“Jake? Son?”
Jacob pressed a hand to his ribs, eyes unfocused.
“I… I don’t know. I just— something’s wrong. Someone’s… sick? Hurting? It feels like—”
A tether.
A pull.
A spark of future-wolf instinct.
He didn’t have the words for it yet.
Paul – living room, knitting with his grandmother
Paul held two knitting needles, helping Nana stitch a sleeve, when his vision pulsed white around the edges.
His heart kicked hard.
Like he needed to stand— run— protect.
Nana looked up, startled.
“Paulie? Your breathing changed.”
“I…”
He swallowed.
“I think someone needs help. Someone close.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
His fingers tightened around the yarn.
“But it feels important.”
Both boys stared into the distance in different houses, unaware they were reacting to the same feverish girl collapsing on the floor of Forks High.
The return, the horror, the impulse
Edward moved fast—silent, controlled, furious—carrying Aspen’s missing belongings in one arm. Her scent was sharp because of fever, sweat, infection, and something else he couldn’t categorize. Something wrong.
He turned the corner expecting to see her slumped where he’d left her.
He did not expect to find Aspen…
…licking the tile floor.
Like a dehydrated stray cat.
The world stuttered around him.
He froze mid-step.
What—
What is she doing—
Why would she—
His stomach lurched in a way only emotional revulsion could cause.
Her pulse thudded unevenly in his ears.
Her scent—normally bright and sharp like citrus peels and salt air—had turned hazy, overheated, tinged with infection.
Her eyelids drooped. Her face was flushed. She was barely conscious.
And still somehow insulting the universe.
He took a single step closer, horrified.
“Aspen, stop— you shouldn’t— that’s filthy—”
She lifted her head, hair stuck to her face, eyes glassy.
And she looked at him like she was recognizing an enemy from a past life.
“Oh,” she slurred, “it’s you.”
Edward blinked, confused.
“Yes, it’s… me.”
Aspen’s face twisted into a grim little sneer.
“Well well well… if it isn’t the abusive piece of 1915s man-child.”
Edward’s entire brain stalled so violently it was almost audible.
His mouth parted.
He stared.
She continued.
“Always gaslighting women…”
Aspen rolled onto her back like a dying Victorian orphan.
“Always acting like you’re better than everyone… ugh… Bella deserves better…”
Edward’s chest tightened in something between offense and confusion.
He had been called many things across a century.
But never—
“1915s man-child.”
He inhaled, trying to maintain self-control—
—and that’s when it hit.
Her blood.
Not the scent of it—
but the weakness beneath it.
She wasn’t just feverish.
She was compromised.
Her heartbeat stuttered, fast then slow then fast again.
Her sweat smelled acidic.
Her body was overheating.
And her veins—he could almost hear them straining.
Something inside Edward’s instincts flicked like a knife.
The predator in him whispered:
Weak.
Hurting.
Take.
For one flash of a second, the monster inside him leaned forward.
He imagined sinking his teeth into the vulnerable, warm curve of her neck.
Her pulse was so fragile.
The fever made her smell sweeter.
Her mind was unguarded.
Her body was pliant.
The instinct surged—
—and Edward’s jaw tightened in horror at himself.
No.
No.
NO.
He forced himself to step back, but the thirst shuddered through him like an aftershock.
Aspen blinked up at him, almost blind with fever.
“You’d… like that, huh?” she murmured.
“To drink me like… a Capri Sun…”
Her words were barely coherent.
Edward felt something break inside him.
Not hunger—
—but shame.
Then—
A cold wind rushed down the hallway.
Alice appeared first in a blur of pixie-like panic, Jasper a half second behind, his presence like a stabilizing pressure against Edward’s spiraling instincts.
“EDWARD!” Alice gasped, horrified.
“Don’t move—don’t get closer—don’t touch her!”
Her eyes were wide and unfocused, cycling through visions.
Jasper’s hands were already on Edward’s shoulders, grounding him with a wave of enforced calm.
Edward stiffened.
“What did you see?” he whispered.
Alice swallowed.
“There was a moment—if you leaned even one inch closer—Edward, you would’ve…”
Her voice cracked.
Jasper steadied his grip.
“It’s not your fault,” he murmured. “The fever’s affecting her scent. It’s dangerous to you.”
Edward closed his eyes, rigid with loathing for himself.
“I would never—”
“You almost did,” Alice whispered.
“Which is why we’re here.”
Aspen let out a soft weak hum in the background.
Then—she just… passed out.
Her head thumped onto her arm.
Her body went limp.
Like she didn’t care about life or death.
Like she had already accepted either.
Edward stared.
His chest felt hollow.
She hadn’t fought.
She hadn’t screamed.
She hadn’t shown fear.
She had simply stopped existing for a moment.
Alice knelt beside the unconscious girl, her expression softening into worry.
“Edward,” she said gently, “she smells like infection, exhaustion, blood loss, and seawater. She needs Carlisle now.”
Jasper added quietly, “And you need distance.”
Edward nodded once—stiff, ashamed, shaken.
But he also glanced down at Aspen, tiny and pale and collapsed on the school floor…
…and whispered so quietly only Jasper could hear:
“I didn’t want to hurt her.”
Jasper nodded.
“I know.”
But the predator inside Edward did not agree.
And that terrified him.
Meyer felt the narrative slipping again.
At first it was the small things — a line of dialogue drifting off-script, Edward hesitating where he should have brooded, Jasper looking toward someone who wasn’t Bella Swan. Annoying, but correctable. A few rewrites. A few hidden authorial nudges. That’s how she had always kept her world in line.
But then he stepped in.
Bayaq.
A being she had never written, never approved, never planned. A being who should not have existed inside her paper-doll universe. And yet there he stood at the narrative’s edge, fingers in the threads, tugging.
Every time Meyer tried to tighten control, Bayaq loosened another knot. He laughed — laughed — as he shifted minor details, rearranged outcomes, and made Edward deviate from the “canon Edward” she had perfected. And now Aspen—Aspen was pushing the world even further off its rails.
“Stop,” Meyer muttered, slamming her hands against the invisible boundary of her own world. But the page trembled, refusing to flatten.
“You don’t get to rewrite me.”
Bayaq only leaned back casually, arms folded behind his head, as though he were lounging in a hammock between cosmic pillars.
“Why not? You rewrote my people. My world. My history.”
His grin sharpened.
“So, I’m just returning the favor. And honestly? It’s way more fun on this side.”
Meyer’s eye twitched. This was supposed to be the prologue. A simple pre-Bella setup. Aspen was only meant to observe, not interfere. Not trigger the wolves early. Not provoke Edward’s instincts. Not break plot armor by collapsing in the hallway like a feverish gremlin licking school tiles.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
And yet, no matter how she tried to force the words back into place…
the narrative resisted her.
Alice slid out of the school building with Aspen limp in her arms, light as a wilted flower but burning with heat. Fever radiated from the girl’s skin like wildfire.
Jasper walked beside her, handling the confused school staff with soldier-like calm.
“She’s severely ill,” Jasper explained. “We’re taking her home. Her guardian has been contacted.”
They hadn’t contacted anyone. But Jasper’s tone made grown adults nod like polite sheep. His gift was wrapping itself around them, coaxing compliance, diffusing questions.
Alice glanced over her shoulder.
Edward had already fled to his Volvo; jaw clenched so tightly the enamel was probably fracturing. He sped toward the Cullen house in silent agony, fighting every darker instinct boiling in his throat.
She had seen flashes of the vision — Edward, teeth bared; Aspen, unconscious and defenseless; blood, heat, fear—
“No,” she whispered again, clutching Aspen tighter. “Not on my watch.”
Aspen murmured incoherently against her shoulder, face flushed and fever-bright. Something that sounded like:
“Edward… glitter… gaslighting… 1915s plague man…”
Alice winced. “Ouch.”
Jasper raised a brow. “She’s roasting him even unconscious.”
“Aspen is… gifted,” Alice murmured.
She didn’t add and Meyer can’t predict her.
More importantly:
She didn’t add that something—someone—was actively sabotaging the threads of fate.
Jasper checked Aspen’s pulse again, worry creasing his normally stoic expression.
“She’s burning up. Edward’s barely holding it together.”
Alice nodded, loading Aspen gently into the back seat of her yellow Porsche.
“I know.”
She shut the door, hands trembling for the first time in years.
“Which means we need to get to the house fast…
before Meyer tries to rewrite this again.”
Meyer hunched over the glowing manuscript, fingers flying desperately across the “patch rewrite” panel.
If she couldn’t stop Aspen’s interference, she could at least contain her.
Fine.
Fine.
FINE.
If Aspen wanted to be in the narrative so badly?
Then Meyer would chain her to it.
A new paragraph burned itself onto the page:
PATCH 1.4.1 — PERMANENT INTEGRATION
Aspen Milagros Arroyo will remain present throughout the entire Twilight Saga. She cannot leave the story, the world, or the timeline. Her significance is now canonically fixed.
Meyer exhaled, triumphant.
Until she felt it.
A ripple.
A laugh.
A presence leaning over her shoulder.
Bayaq.
“Oh wow,” he drawled, mock-applauding. “You really panicked with this one.”
Meyer gritted her teeth. “Stay out of this.”
“You basically welded Aspen into your plot like a loose car door. She’s going to rattle the whole frame until it falls off.”
“This will stabilize everything,” Meyer snapped.
But even as she spoke, the letters she had just written began to twitch.
Shift.
Rearrange themselves.
The world rejected the patch as though it were a virus.
Bayaq smirked.
“Or worsen everything. You just tied your whole series to a sick, delirious gremlin girl who hates your protagonist. Brilliant authorial strategy. Ten out of ten.”
Meyer felt her stomach drop.
Because the next line formed on the page entirely without her:
Aspen Milagros Arroyo is now a fixed point in the narrative. Any attempt to remove her will destabilize the story.
“What—? That wasn’t me—!”
“Yeah,” Bayaq said brightly. “That was the world. It likes her more than you.”
Esme stood at the base of the staircase, watching Edward pace back and forth like a predator trapped behind glass.
He didn’t breathe—none of them did—but the frantic motion mimicked hyperventilation.
“She was burning alive,” Edward hissed. “Her thoughts—her pain—her voice—”
He pressed a hand against his temples. “I shouldn’t have… I almost—”
Esme stepped forward, motherly calm radiating from her carefully composed expression.
“Edward,” she said gently, “no one was harmed.”
“I almost bit her, Esme!”
“But you didn’t.”
“She called me a ‘gaslighting 1915s plague man,’” he whispered, tortured.
“And the worst part is that—she wasn’t wrong.”
Esme placed a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch, but his posture buckled as though the weight of her kindness was heavier than guilt.
“You are not that person,” she told him softly. “Whatever she said, whatever she believes—she’s sick. Delirious. She needs care, not fear.”
Edward swallowed a venom-thick breath.
“I don’t want to hurt her again.”
“Then don’t,” Esme insisted. “Channel your fear into protection, not avoidance.”
Aspen’s mind rose from fever-dream sludge like a drowned phone restarting at 3% battery.
She became vaguely aware of cold hands. Voices. Movement.
The blurry room swam into focus.
The Cullen house ceiling.
And two vampires—too close.
Carlisle gently: “Aspen, sweetheart, we’re trying to help—”
Edward: “Don’t struggle—your stitches—”
“NOPE—DON’T TOUCH ME—”
Aspen kicked, flailing like an angry ferret.
She slapped Carlisle’s face.
Bit Edward’s wrist.
Licked Carlisle’s hand because her brain misfired.
“WHAT—why are you licking—?!” Carlisle sputtered.
“DOG MODE ACTIVATED,” Aspen croaked deliriously before barking. Loudly.
Edward recoiled. “Carlisle, sedate her. Sedate her NOW.”
“I’m trying!”
Aspen wormed halfway off the medical bed, one sock missing again, hair wild, eyes glazed with fever-delirium.
“You abusive glitter scarecrow!” she shouted at Edward. “You treat women like puzzles you can brood at! And Carlisle! You’re too nice it’s suspicious—are you harvesting organs?!”
Carlisle froze, a syringe hovering midair.
“…What?”
Aspen burst into hysterical laughter. Then tears. Then laughter again. Then she tried to bite the IV line.
“Aspen—Aspen, honey, that’s medical tubing, not food—” Carlisle said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
She barked at him again.
Edward backed away a full three feet.
“She’s feral.”
“She’s ill,” Carlisle corrected, pressing a sleeping aid into her arm with practiced precision.
Aspen’s flailing slowed.
Her eyes fluttered.
She whispered something that sounded like:
“Meyer… can bite me…”
Then she went limp, finally unconscious.
Edward let out a painful breath.
Carlisle glanced at him.
“She’ll be fine,” he reassured softly. “Her fever will break soon.”
Edward wasn’t so sure.
Because he could still feel the narrative shuddering—
—and Aspen Milagros Arroyo was becoming something far more dangerous than a sick human girl.
She was becoming unavoidable.
Aspen woke with a throat full of fire and a brain made of wet cardboard.
The room was dim, unfamiliar.
Too clean.
Too expensive.
Too vampire-chic.
She was in a guest room—or maybe Carlisle’s office-turned-infirmary—propped on a soft cot with a blanket tucked around her like she was fragile porcelain instead of a feral gremlin.
A lamp glowed softly near the doorway.
Outside, she heard voices:
Trish, her stepmom, the one person who could intimidate vampires with pure nurse authority:
“Dr. Cullen, thank you—thank you for helping Aspen. We didn’t know she was so sick—”
Carlisle, gentle, eternally calm:
“She’s out of immediate danger. Fever’s still high. We’re monitoring—”
Trish’s voice sharpened—her “nurse tone” unlocking like a weapon:
“Monitor? What do you mean monitor? Why didn’t anyone call me sooner?! Her stitches look terrible—”
Aspen winced.
Oh boy.
Her brain hiccupped, then sparked an idea.
A terrible idea.
A fever brilliant idea.
ESCAPE MISSION.
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand.
Her vision doubled, then tripled. Whatever. She could still type.
She opened a group message labeled:
“La Push Besties + Problem Children (Q1 Wolves?)”
She typed with fingers made of spaghetti:
ASPEN: help
the vamps kidnapped me
im @ their mansion
pls rescue immediately
or bring soup idc
fever 103 help
leah i swear if u dont come get me im haunting u
She hit SEND TO:
-
Paul
-
Jacob
-
Embry
-
Quil
-
Leah
-
Sam
-
Seth (she added him on accident but oh well)
Her head thudded back onto the pillow.
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “Perfect. Genius. Execute Order 66.”
Edward burst into the room exactly 0.3 seconds after the wolves received the texts.
He moved vampire-fast across the room.
“Aspen—give me the phone—”
Aspen clutched it to her chest like a raccoon with a stolen Pop-Tart.
“No. It’s mine. You’ve taken enough from me. Let me have this one thing!”
“You just alerted half of La Push that we ‘kidnapped’ you!”
“Well maybe you DID!”
Edward reached for the phone.
Aspen huffed, rolled, and fell off the bed.
Face-first.
He lunged to catch her—
—but she scrambled under Carlisle’s desk like a fever-possessed gremlin.
“Give. Me. The. Phone,” Edward hissed.
“You’re not my dad,” Aspen croaked. “And even if you were, you’d be a lousy one.”
Edward froze.
Hurt visibly flashed in his eyes.
Aspen blinked, then whispered deliriously:
“Sorry. You’d be an… okay… vampire dad. A little dramatic. But like C+.”
Edward lunged again.
Aspen shrieked.
The phone was yeeted across the room—
Edward caught it midair—
and turned it off with a tortured groan.
Meyer sat in her study room, frantically editing the “patch rewrite” files, when the candle on her desk guttered—
—and a second flame appeared beside it.
A presence.
A shadow shaped like a man, a raven, and a collapsing star all at once.
Then he stepped forward.
Bayaq’s form shifted like oil on water:
-
Dark braids threaded with raven feathers, beads from his people, carved bone pieces telling stories older than Forks, older than colonization.
-
Eyes black like obsidian, glinting with storms.
-
Clothing half-modern, half-traditional—buckskin textures woven into a long coat that moved like wings.
-
Tattoos across his throat and hands—ancient warning signs, protection markings.
He looked like the beginning of a legend.
And Meyer looked like she was about to scream.
“W—why are you here? I didn’t summon anything—”
“Relax,” Bayaq said, smiling too wide. “I’m not here to punish you.”
She swallowed. “Then why—”
He leaned close, voice dropping into something old enough to shift mountains.
“Because you keep treating my people as props.”
Meyer froze.
“You treat the Quileute like a supernatural plot device. A conflict generator. A romantic fetish. A monolith of wolves and tragedy.”
“I—I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t listen,” Bayaq corrected. “For years.”
He placed a hand over her manuscript. It pulsed like a heartbeat under his palm.
“You will learn. Through Aspen. Through chaos. Through humility.”
His grin sharpened.
“And through losing control of your precious narrative.”
Meyer trembled.
“Why Aspen?”
“Because she sees plot holes like exposed bone.”
“Because she refuses to dehumanize anyone.”
“Because she is messy, flawed, loud, stubborn, and impossible to erase.”
“And because,” he added softly, “she is the kind of human who would have respected my people first.”
Meyer whispered, voice cracking:
“…Is this a curse?”
Bayaq snorted.
“A curse? No.”
He leaned forward, raven feathers brushing her manuscript.
“A lesson. For you. For your fans. And for anyone who ever looked at an Indigenous nation and thought ‘lesser.’”
Then he vanished—
leaving ink dripping from the ceiling
and her patch rewrite burning like a warning.
“What the hell—”
Leah opened the message.
Her jaw dropped.
help the vamps kidnapped me
“Oh my god. SAM. GET UP. PAUL. GET UP.”
Sam—already wolf-aware—bolted upright from the kitchen table, face ashen.
“What happened?”
“She’s at the Cullens! Sick and delirious!”
Paul was already grabbing his shoes.
“Kidnapped? I TOLD HER NOT TO TALK TO THE SPARKLE PEOPLE.”
Embry, Quil, and Jacob were pulling on hoodies.
Seth stumbled out of bed barefoot, rubbing his eyes.
Leah floored the gas pedal.
“We’re going RIGHT NOW—somebody start praying.”
Edward stared at Aspen—still under the desk, mumbling about “vampire tax evasion”—and then at the phone that would no longer turn on.
Too late.
He heard it.
Six heartbeats.
One vibration of fury.
One truck barreling through the forest road.
Edward whispered:
“…Oh no.”
The wolves were coming.
And Aspen—sniffling miserably, still half-feral—looked up and said:
“Is Leah bringing soup…? Because honestly… I’d… kill for soup…”
She passed out again.
Edward closed his eyes.
This was going to be catastrophic.
Notes:
I think Edward hates her because she can't be "controlled" aka Aspen just sit down and be normal for five seconds in this world and makes him so mad.
Edward trying to talk about the weather to Aspen
Aspen do you ever think that your own mother ever loved you or not?
Edward shuts the fuck down as Aspen giggles anyway let's both talk about our mommy issues, okay? Then we can talk about the weather, okay, champ!
Aspen is that one homie that makes you feel you are tripping on acid but you both are sober as fuck and you don't how she making you feel you need to start grounding yourself. Aspen is just like we need some chicken nuggies- milkshake!
Oh, and we need a job too! For more chicken nuggies!
Or Aspen's like with wide eyes staring into your soul whispering I love you- don't care the world thinks of you- let's take over the government or get married haha- let's eat the rich...or maybe just talk about your day, I will do anything keep you alive, alright?
Edward is afraid of that....
While he is brooding mode, she is in spiraling mode, and they can't mix that up or they might kill each other vibes.
Aspen is like a little ant mad at God- Edward being the God can kill her any moment he pleases but Aspen is still like I am gonna still bite you and steal your food.
No- you're manic- I am not manic- you are- oh shit I am- I haven't been sleeping well I- I saw something the other night and scared me, my Eros was outside protecting the chickens! I have 4 chickens now!
For eggs and fun, we named one Petunia, the other Tuna, one of them be Tina, and lastly Linda.
I named Tuna clearly, no- I don't know why I did but I thought it was funny. Chicken named Tuna is my type of humor at times!
Chapter 10: Welcome to My Fever Dream!
Chapter Text
Leah whipped Sam’s truck into the Cullens’ long, painfully elegant driveway. The house glowed like a giant Apple Store dropped in the woods—she already wanted to break one of their windows out of principle.
But then her headlights caught something that made her ease off the gas:
Trish’s car.
A sturdy 1998 Toyota Camry, faded teal with butterfly stickers on the back bumper and a dent from that one time Aspen opened the garage door too fast. A woven Navajo-pattern blanket was spread over the back seats, and the passenger window was cracked open because the AC had been broken since July.
Leah felt her pulse slow.
If Trish was here…
If Aspen’s stepmom—the nurse with the No-Nonsense Voice—had arrived…
Then Aspen wasn’t being bled dry in a marble bathtub by vampires after all.
Leah exhaled, shoulders sinking.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Maybe she wasn’t actually kidnapped.”
Sam climbed out of the truck, looking tired but relieved, rubbing his face with both hands.
“Good,” he murmured. “Good. Trish wouldn’t leave Aspen alone with strangers. That means she’s safe.”
Paul, however, slammed the door so hard the truck shook.
“She texted us ‘help the vamps kidnapped me!’ What was I supposed to think?!”
Leah rolled her eyes.
“She also texted Quil once that the gym floor was trying to ‘swallow her whole.’ You can’t trust anything she says when she’s feverish.”
“Why’d she call them vamps?” Jared muttered as they approached the house. “Is that the new slang? Like ‘vamp it up’? Or ‘vamp day’ like Emo kids say?”
“No,” Leah growled. “She literally thinks they’re vampires.”
Everyone paused.
Jacob blinked slowly.
“…Okay but… what if—”
“No,” Leah said flatly. “Just no.”
She pushed open the front door.
And all her hopes for calm dissolved instantly.
Aspen was crouched behind Carlisle’s desk, cheek pressed to the cool floor tiles, trying very hard not to throw up or fall asleep again.
The room smelled like antiseptic, old books, and expensive vampire anxiety.
Outside the slightly cracked office door, chaos was unfolding.
She could hear:
Carlisle, doing his best doctor mediator voice:
“Everyone, please—Aspen is very ill, and sudden noise will worsen—”
Paul, absolutely ignoring him:
“IF SHE TEXTS US FOR HELP, WE COME GET HER. THAT’S HOW IT WORKS.”
Leah:
“Paul, shut up before you get us all arrested.”
Seth chanting like a proud little altar boy:
“I have ramen noodles! I have ramen noodles for Aspen! I have ramen—”
Quil:
“Seth, stop. It’s 3 A.M. and you’re scaring the doctor.”
Jared:
“Can we not fight the vampires in front of Trish? She’s looking at us like she’s about to assign chores.”
Trish’s voice carried above all of it—sharp, controlled, mother-determined:
“I don’t care who is supernatural, who is sleep-deprived, or
who is throwing punches.
MY daughter has a 103-degree fever.
My daughter is vomiting.
And my daughter is NOT going back to school this week.”
Aspen smiled tiredly.
Yeah. That was Trish.
Inside the room, Edward hovered near her desk refuge like an angry marble gargoyle, torn between frustration and protective instinct.
He muttered tightly, “You shouldn’t have texted them.”
Aspen barely managed a whisper:
“Ramen… noodles… please…”
Edward blinked, baffled.
“That’s… what you’re focusing on right now?”
She nodded weakly, eyes glassy.
“The ramen is calling to me.”
Edward ran a hand over his face. He looked utterly defeated.
From the hallway, Jacob’s voice drifted through—softly amused:
“Oh wow… she’s delirious-delirious.
That’s kinda… adorable?”
Sam elbowed him hard.
Carlisle tried again:
“Let’s all take a breath. Aspen is safe. Aspen is cared for. She merely—”
Paul cut him off.
“MERE-LY texted us that you kidnapped her!”
Embry whispered, “To be fair, she calls everyone kidnappers when she’s sick.”
Leah added, “Last year Trish stated Aspen said the flu kidnapped her. The flu, Paul.”
Aspen crawled gently out from under the desk, wobbling like a baby deer on roller skates.
Edward inhaled sharply, reaching to steady her.
She blinked up at him.
“Where’s… the ramen…”
Leah’s footfalls thundered toward the doorway.
“STEP ASIDE, COLD ONES. I GOT A FEVER GREMLIN TO FEED.”
Edward groaned into his hands.
This night was far from over.
Leah braced her shoulder against the porch post, arms crossed so tightly it felt like her bones were trying to hold her together. Trish sat on the couch inside, propped up with pillows, nursing the feverish, half-conscious Aspen while Leah awkwardly tried to spoon some broth into Aspen’s free hand between breaths. The whooping cough had wrung the kid out, left their skin hot enough to steam in the cold air that wafted in whenever the door cracked.
Outside, the wolves and the Cullens were still glaring at each other like they were waiting for someone to sneeze wrong.
Leah saw it all—because she always saw everything—but from the way Aspen’s glazed eyes drifted over them, they saw more. Aspen was burning up so violently that the world around them shimmered like fiction; every face glowed, edges softening into something unreal.
The Cullens looked less like people and more like marble sketches of angels.
The wolves looked like carved shadows, breathing heat and storm.
Even in delirium, Aspen managed to glare at anyone who lingered too long. A kid after Leah’s own heart.
Across the yard, Carlisle lifted his hands in the universal sign of please let’s not have a supernatural brawl on the lawn at sunrise, and for once it almost worked.
“Let’s all breathe,” Carlisle said, voice even, almost soothing—though Edward’s shoulders were tight enough to snap steel. “We can discuss this rationally.”
Paul snorted. Loudly. “Yeah, sure. Real rational. Mind-reader over there keeps poking around where he doesn’t belong.”
Edward’s jaw twitched. “If your thoughts weren’t so…” he struggled, “…aggressively broadcast, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
Paul surged forward.
Edward surged back.
Leah rolled her eyes. Of course.
Jacob was there before either of them made contact, a hand on Paul’s chest, another arm blocking Edward. “Not. Now.”
Edward glared at Jacob, but what shocked Leah wasn’t the "vampire"—it was Paul. Instead of barking back, Paul took a half-step behind Jacob, not in retreat but in sync, like they’d done this before in some unspoken way.
And Jacob didn’t complain, didn’t shove him off, didn’t scowl.
They stood there—shoulder to shoulder—like they’d been a two-man pack long before fur and phase had entered the picture.
Leah blinked. Well. That was new.
Nice, but new.
Inside, Aspen whimpered. Trish hushed them gently, brushing the damp hair off their forehead. Leah stepped closer, bowl in hand, feeling that pull of protective instinct she hated acknowledging but always felt.
Aspen’s eyes fluttered open—hazy, fever-glossed—but locked right onto her. Then onto the wolves outside. Then onto the Cullens.
And in that fever-born clarity, Aspen seemed to just… know.
Know what they were.
Know what they would be.
Know the futures that were supposed to unravel badly for all of them.
A flicker of pity crossed their expression—soft, impossibly young, heartbreakingly aware.
Then Aspen scowled weakly at Emmett for standing too close.
Leah’s lips twitched. “Yeah, kid. I get it.”
Carlisle’s voice floated in from the doorway. “We can settle terms. But not if everyone is armed like it’s a battlefield.”
Paul muttered, “Then tell Edward to quit being smug.”
Edward muttered, “Then tell Paul to stop thinking in static.”
Jacob sighed, loudly and dramatically. “Both of you, shut up.”
Leah watched Jacob and Paul exchange a side-eye—one not full of loathing, but something like mutual annoyance pointed in the same direction.
Huh.
Look at that.
Her boys were practically friends.
She didn’t say it out loud, of course.
She enjoyed peace too much to risk jinxing it.
Instead, she leaned down and wiped Aspen’s cheek with a cool cloth.
“Hang in there, kid. The circus clowns are almost done.”
Outside, Carlisle attempted another soft-spoken negotiation.
Inside, Aspen glared at him too.
Leah snorted. “Yeah. Definitely your kind of people.”
Aspen ate like a starving wolf pup, except scrawnier and fever-slick and somehow still giving attitude between bites. Trish steadied the bowl while Adan hovered with the silent, exhausted vigilance of a parent who has long accepted that their child is chaos incarnate.
Leah sat on the edge of the couch, doing her best impression of “competent big sister-type helper,” though really she was just trying to keep Aspen from face-planting into their soup.
Trish kept glancing at Leah with that warm, motherly gratitude Leah didn’t know how to respond to—so she didn’t. But she did like Trish. A lot. Trish had this grounding effect on Aspen, like she was the one force in the universe capable of keeping the kid tethered to reality instead of spiraling into full gremlin mode.
Aspen slurped loudly, paused, and launched into a fever-fueled rant.
“—and then in Mesopotamia they didn’t even call them werewolves yet, but like halfway-wolf guardians, which honestly is cooler than—than—whatever modern media did to y’all—”
Leah blinked. “Uh-huh.”
Aspen didn’t notice Leah’s non-answer. Fever had transformed their brain into a supernatural TED Talk on x1.75 speed.
“And the Celtic lore is so wrong,” Aspen mumbled, eyes half-shut, voice wobbling strangely between lecture and delirium. “Wolves don’t eat their packmates unless it’s symbolic. Or political. Or both.”
Leah sighed. Why were they like this? Why did fever make Aspen academically intense instead of sleepy like a normal person?
Aspen leaned toward her, eyes neon with fever-glint. “By the way… you’re not a werewolf.”
Leah froze. “Come again?”
“You’re more like—like—” Aspen’s head lolled dramatically toward her.
“A shapeshifter. Not cursed. Just genetically… I dunno… rad.”
Leah stared.
Aspen nodded with delirious certainty.
Leah exhaled slowly. “Okay. Cool. Love that for me.”
But it wasn’t just the shapeshifter comment.
Aspen knew. Like really, genuinely believed the Cullens were vampires and that she—Leah—would someday be a “big scary wolf.”
Leah pinched the bridge of her nose. The kid had no idea everyone outside was already big scary wolves. And vampires. And somehow Aspen wasn’t afraid—just… invested.
And maybe… maybe Leah liked that. Maybe she liked Aspen in a “please distract my entire tribe for me so I can get ten minutes of peace one day” kind of way. A useful little chaos gremlin. A tiny future buffer. Someone who could siphon half the Rez’s attention and leave Leah blissfully alone.
Very neat, she thought dryly.
Very resourceful.
Definitely weaponizable.
Aspen yawned, snuggling closer to Trish. “You’re gonna be important,” they mumbled to Leah. “Like… alpha-adjacent. Emotionally.”
Leah choked on air.
Emotionally alpha-adjacent? What does that even—
Adan gave her an apologetic look, as if to say fever, sorry, but Leah kinda liked the absurdity.
She brushed Aspen’s hair back, muttering, “You’re weird, kid.”
Aspen blinked up at her. “Takes one to know one.”
Leah smirked.
Yeah. Okay. Fair.
Outside, Seth Clearwater was drowsily leaning against a tree, half-awake, half-asleep, watching the drama unfold across the yard like it was daytime television.
He had gotten approximately three hours of sleep in two days and was starting to hallucinate colors around people based on mood. Jacob’s aura was burnt orange annoyance. Paul’s was red hot “I will fight God and win.” Edward’s was pale blue “I am being persecuted.”
Jacob and Paul were currently tag-teaming Edward in a verbal smackdown, which was both shocking and high-quality entertainment.
Paul pointed at Edward with the intensity of someone accusing a houseplant of treason. “Stop acting like you invented sensitivity just because you can hear us think.”
Jacob backed him up. “Yeah, dude. You’re being weird and controlling.”
Edward sputtered. “I—controlling? Paul threatened to—”
Paul cut in, “Okay but Edward, you are smug.”
Jacob nodded. “He’s right. You kinda are.”
Seth snorted so hard he choked.
Jared stepped in, hands up like a referee. “Okay okay okay—listen—Paul’s acting like this because Aspen’s his, uh… semi—” He struggled to find the correct term. “—semi-girlfriend, semi-boyfriend? Semi-something? I dunno. Point is, he’s being protective.”
Quil whispered, “Since when does Paul have a semi-boyfriend? I mean semi-witchy partner?”
Embry whispered back, “Since Aspen accidentally held his hand three times and he imprinted on their emotional damage.”
Seth laughed. He couldn’t help it. Even half-conscious, this was top-tier comedy.
Carlisle rubbed his temple like a man who wished for earplugs. Esme put a hand on his shoulder, both of them radiating parental exhaustion.
“They’re all teenagers,” Esme murmured. “This is too much pressure. They’re tired, they’re emotional, and they clearly haven’t slept.”
Carlisle nodded with the solemn weight of a doctor diagnosing The Hormones Are Winning.
“Perhaps,” he said gently, “we should all take a step back.”
Emmett whispered to Rosalie, “If one more person yells, I’m putting myself in time-out.”
Rosalie whispered back, “If one more person yells, I’m putting them in time-out.”
Seth yawned so hard his jaw cracked.
The whole yard smelled like stress, testosterone, cold vampire marble, and faint chicken soup from inside.
He blinked slowly, watching Paul and Jacob stand closer than expected, united in their universal annoyance at Edward.
Seth smiled sleepily. Huh. Maybe things were finally turning around.
Or maybe he was so tired that even Paul looked friendly.
Either way…
The drama was honestly better than cable.
Five hours later
Aspen woke again.
Her fever had broken a little, but her head still throbbed in this soft, underwater way—like thoughts were fish, flickering too fast to catch.
The house around her was dim and warm and… loud.
Not in chaos.
In sleepy argument kind of loud.
She blinked blearily at the ceiling of what must’ve been Carlisle’s study-turned-guest-room. Her ears caught the mess of voices drifting down the hallway and through vents.
Jacob’s laugh—stifled behind his hand—came first.
He was in the living room with Emmett and Paul.
She could hear it clear as crystal:
“…no, dude, if you’re gonna be dramatic at least commit to it,” Jacob snorted, socking Paul lightly in the shoulder.
Paul shot back, “At least I’m not denying I’m dramatic, unlike Edward over here trying to act like he’s above human emotions.”
Emmett clapped loudly.
“Yes! Roast him! Continue!”
Edward’s offended sputter was faint but unmistakable.
Jasper, from somewhere behind the couch, tried so hard not to laugh he sounded like he had swallowed a hiccup.
Carlisle and Esme moved around like tired but patient hosts, murmuring polite things to her dad and stepmom—Adán and Trish—who were now helping serve tea, blankets, and gentle conversation like some surreal, cross-species PTA meeting.
Aspen blinked up at the ceiling.
Maybe… Bayaq did this.
Like a forced sleepover.
A babysitting session for supernatural teenagers who didn’t yet understand they were supernatural.
And Aspen felt… weirdly grateful for it.
In her real world—before all this—she struggled so much with herself.
Her gender.
Her body.
How girl she felt—or didn’t feel—on any given day.
Here… it was softer.
Easier.
She wasn’t fighting anyone’s expectations.
Everyone was too busy fighting each other.
She sat up slowly, arms trembling.
Outside her door, someone whispered:
“Leah, scoot over—my arm is going numb—”
It was Seth. Sleepy, warm, almost purring.
Leah grumbled, “Seth, if you cuddle me any tighter you’ll fuse us together permanently.”
“But I’m cold.”
“You run at a hundred and six degrees.”
Somewhere near the stairs, Sam muttered irritably, “Alice. For the love of every ancestor—stop watching me sleep.”
Alice whispered, “But you’re interesting.”
Sam groaned.
Aspen couldn’t help smiling, dazed and glowing with fever.
They sounded almost… real.
She swung her legs over the bed, breathing slow and deep.
That’s when she heard it.
A soft, playful chirp at the window.
Aspen looked up.
A raven.
Perched on the sill of Carlisle’s study window, glossy black, head cocked.
Familiar in that unsettling “guide in the shadows” way.
Maybe Bayaq checking in.
Maybe protection.
Maybe company.
Aspen’s fever-slow heart fluttered.
She pushed off the blankets and staggered toward the window, dizzy but determined. Bare feet cold on the hardwood. The raven’s eyes gleamed gold-black, tracking her.
She felt… safe.
She reached out her hand—
And froze.
Her fingertips hovered an inch above the glass.
Her body shuddered.
A sick, crawling wrongness rolled through the room like static.
The air tasted metallic.
The raven’s feathers puffed and it let out a violent, warning kraaak.
Aspen blinked, confused—
And in another room, Edward Cullen jerked upright.
He hadn’t meant to listen.
He was just exhausted and slipping.
He wasn’t focusing on anyone.
But Aspen’s thoughts slammed into him like a tidal wave—
the window isn’t the window
something is there—wrong—too smooth—too empty—
meyer’s loophole—meyer’s trap—
this is where i end—
Edward froze.
Then bolted.
“Aspen!”
He flew down the hallway, panic ripping through his chest like claws.
Aspen’s fingers brushed the glass—
A tearing sound ripped the air open.
Not physical.
Not audible.
Something like a seam in reality peeling back.
The glass flickered—no, glitched.
Like a bad render.
Pixelated for a heartbeat.
Aspen’s knees buckled.
Her eyes rolled back.
Her body collapsed sideways—
toward the window—
toward the glitching seam—
toward nothingness.
Edward skidded into the doorway just in time to see her vanish downward, her hand slipping through the unnatural shimmer.
His scream tore out of him—
“A—ASPEN!”
The raven slammed itself against the glass, wings spreading in a violent frenzy—
Then everything went black.
Not silent.
Not calm.
Black like a swallowed heartbeat.
Black like a cliff edge with no bottom.
Black like falling.
Meyer had finally found a crack.
Not in Aspen.
Aspen was frustratingly durable, defiant, faith-driven, and now—because of Bayaq—unpredictably unbound.
But the world?
Her world?
It had rules.
Old rules of narrative control and character containment.
She knew every hinge, every seam, every gravitational pull of her universe.
And she found a loophole where Aspen didn’t fully belong yet:
the boundary between setting-placement and character-placement.
Aspen had not been formally “introduced” into any chapter.
She existed inside preliminary narrative space—a prologue buffer, a not-yet-coded zone.
Meaning Meyer could push her into a “null pocket,” a sort of authorial holding area, not unlike what happened when side-characters were temporarily unused.
It wasn’t meant to kill Aspen.
Not exactly.
It was meant to scare her.
To make her compliant.
To shatter her faith and walk her into a more controllable “arc”—grateful, obedient, quiet.
A character in fear was a character who listened.
Meyer whispered the patch rewrite into the fabric:
MOVE PROTAGONIST ASPEN →
SCENIC HOLD (VOID / WATER ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPLATE).
A simple line of code.
A cruel one.
She told herself she wasn’t doing harm.
Just… correcting an anomaly.
But Bayaq saw her.
And he was smiling.
The world went wrong.
Not broken—
not shattered—
but detached.
Aspen didn’t fall through the window.
She fell past it.
Into a place that felt like the bottom of the ocean, yet nothing was wet.
Darkness didn’t surround her—
it pressed on her, thick as water, breathing around her skull with ancient, whale-song silence.
She couldn’t breathe.
She shouldn’t need to breathe.
She gasped anyway.
Her limbs flailed, weightless, sinking and sinking and sinking—
Beneath her, above her, beside her—
infinite cold.
No gravity.
No up.
No down.
Just the sense of falling forever.
Her heartbeat pounded against her ribs, loud enough she could hear it echo—a grotesque, whale-sized thump-thump-thump in the black.
Her fever, confused, tried to tell her she was dreaming.
But something else moved in the dark.
A shape.
A current.
A presence like a deep-sea predator circling.
Something from Twilight’s horrors—the hunters, the old Volturi, creatures she couldn’t yet name—echoed in the void, watching.
Her throat tightened in panic—
And then—
A flash of black wings.
The raven streaked downward like a shooting star, feathers shimmering with impossible colors.
Bayaq.
He followed her.
He dove after her.
Aspen reached out—
terrified—
pleading—
“Help—!”
Her voice drowned instantly in the abyss.
But the raven caught her shirt, claws curling just enough to tug, stabilize—
Not pull her free.
Not yet.
But keep her from drifting deeper.
He croaked once, loud and echoing like a war cry, wings beating back the void.
Aspen sobbed in relief.
Even delirious—she knew it:
Meyer hadn’t created this place.
Bayaq had broken into it.
The scream tore from his throat before he could stop it.
Not articulate.
Not elegant.
A raw, animal sound.
He reached the window—
no, the space where a window had been—
just in time to see reality flicker like a broken movie reel.
The glass pixelated, collapsed, then restored itself with a sound like inhaling breath.
Below—
He saw her hit the ground.
Not hard enough to break.
Not soft enough to be okay.
Aspen landed on her side—
limp—
a raven hopping proudly onto her chest like it had completed a noble rescue mission.
Edward froze.
His mind went blank.
Then:
“A—Aspen?”
His voice cracked.
Actually cracked.
He sounded like a boy again, unsteady and scared.
Then the house erupted behind him.
Feet pounding.
Voices shouting.
Sam was the first through the doorway, breathless and wild-eyed, shoulders squared like a wolf protecting his own.
“What happened?!”
Carlisle, Esme, Trish, Adán, Leah, Paul, Jacob—
the entire house surged behind him in a storm of confusion and panic.
But Aspen…
Aspen moved.
Not normally.
Not human.
She rolled over—
onto hands—
onto knees—
her back arched like something feral shaking off the dark.
Her hospital gown—when had they changed her?—fluttered around her in the cold wind.
The raven cawed triumphantly.
Aspen blinked at them with wide, unfocused eyes—
Then bolted.
On all fours.
Before rising to her feet in one wild, fever-drunken motion.
She sprinted into the forest like she was fleeing a murder—
The raven swooping after her, loyal and fierce.
Edward stood there on the grass, cold air flooding his lungs he didn’t need, shock written across every beautiful, marble-carved feature.
His hands shook.
Carlisle reached his side.
“Edward,” he murmured, “breathe.”
But Edward only whispered,
“…when… when did her parents put her in a hospital gown?”
No one answered.
Because everyone realized at the same time—
They hadn’t.
Aspen’s mind was on fire.
Not the fever.
Not the infection.
Not the physical fall.
Something deeper—
a kind of adult panic shoved into a teenage brain, an internal scream that didn’t match the small, recovering, fragile body she was trapped in.
At twenty-six she had learned how to survive.
How to cope.
How to swallow panic.
Here?
In this teenage skin, with this teenage brain chemistry, exhausted and sick?
She couldn’t.
She was drowning.
And she knew—she knew—that the moment she fell through that authorial crack, Meyer had tried to shove her somewhere else.
A place Aspen remembered only in fever shards:
White walls.
Screaming fluorescents.
Hands.
Needles.
A thick strap across her wrist.
A chart that said “delusional disorder, fantasy fixation.”
And Aspen, screaming that this wasn’t her story, that she didn’t belong in New Moon, that she didn’t belong anywhere near a psych ward—
And then—
Black wings bursting through the ceiling.
Bayaq ripping her free of restraints with supernatural physics and comedic, smug confidence.
He saved her.
Again.
And now she ran—
because the world underneath her feet still felt unstable.
Like the ground might turn into hospital linoleum at any second.
Like Meyer might reach through the soil itself and drag her back.
Her fever logic sharpened into a primal instinct:
RUN.
GET OFF THE PAGE.
OUTPACE THE NARRATIVE.
Her legs were clumsy, but her fear was strong.
Branches slapped her arms.
Her lungs burned.
Her stitches pulsed with pain.
She didn’t care.
Bayaq swooped just ahead, cawing warnings each time the forest
flickered—
glitching—
a seam in the world where Meyer tried to pull Aspen sideways into narrative traps.
If Aspen stepped in the wrong shadow, wrong puddle, wrong clearing—
she’d drop again.
Into a scene.
Into a “placement.”
Bayaq steered her around them:
A stump that wasn’t a stump, but an unrendered boundary.
A patch of fog hiding a half-loaded hospital room.
A fallen log flickering like a glitched texture.
Aspen leapt over them, stumbling, snarling.
At one point she dropped to all fours, galloping like an animal, fever-logic telling her that if she wasn’t bipedal she wasn’t a “character” Meyer could place.
She even barked at a bush.
Actually barked.
Then laughed hysterically and kept running.
Edward had never known real fear.
Not until this.
He stood rooted near the shattered grass, shaking—not visibly, but enough for Carlisle to sense it.
Esme touched his arm gently.
“Edward… what did you see?”
He swallowed hard.
He couldn’t say falling into nothing.
Couldn’t say her mind screaming like it wasn’t from this world.
Couldn’t say the window vanished.
So, he whispered the truth he could manage:
“I saw… panic. Not human panic. Something older.”
His voice cracked again.
“She wasn’t running from us.”
Carlisle exchanged a look with Esme—anxious, not confused.
“She’s terrified,” Esme murmured.
“And very sick. It’s no one’s fault.”
Edward bit down on a trembling breath.
But he kept staring into the forest, trying to track her mind.
He couldn’t.
Aspen’s thoughts were static—white noise, fever static, glitch static.
And fear.
Raw fear.
Behind him, chaos swelled again.
Trish was shaking violently, adrenaline and exhaustion crashing into each other.
Quil, Embry, and Seth surrounded her like three anxious house puppies, each offering something:
“Want water?”
“Want a blanket?”
“Want—uh—air?”
Trish half-laughed, half-cried, “I just want my kid safe.”
Seth patted her hand.
“We’re on it. We’re like… a whole squad. A rescue squad.”
Embry nodded seriously.
“Yeah, and Aspen… Aspen’s fast, but Paul’s faster.”
Jacob scoffed.
“I’m faster.”
Quil added, “I’m fastest.”
All three glared at each other in the middle of a crisis.
It almost made Trish laugh.
Sam led, muscles coiled, breath even, scanning for traps or distortions in the path ahead.
Behind him, Paul and Jacob were shockingly in sync—
tag-teaming without meaning to.
Jacob leapt over a root; Paul grabbed his hoodie to yank him out of a half-seen shimmer in the air that would have sucked him into a narrative pocket.
Leah came next—furious, exhausted, competitive, and half-convinced this was the strangest night of her entire life.
“She’s dodging something,” Sam muttered.
“Left!”
They swerved.
A patch of ground flickered like bad CGI.
“What the hell was that?” Jacob panted.
“Don’t ask,” Leah answered.
“Just keep moving!”
Aspen snarled at a shadow.
Then howled at a tree.
Then felt dizzy and giggly and terrified all at once.
Her fever-brain made everything dreamlike.
Hyperreal.
Beautiful.
Horrific.
She saw Meyer’s traps—
thin cracks in the world like seams in a stage backdrop.
She avoided each one by inches.
Thanks to Bayaq circling overhead, squawking at danger with almost joyful aggression.
“That’s right,” Aspen slurred at him breathlessly.
“Tell her to kiss my—”
Her foot caught on a root—
she stumbled—
almost fell into a shimmer—
Bayaq dive-bombed her head, screaming.
Aspen jerked sideways.
Missed the trap by centimeters.
She burst out laughing.
“I’m too fast! You can’t catch me! I’m— I’m—”
She forgot the word.
Didn’t matter.
She ran.
Running like prey.
Running like a survivor.
Running like a glitch the narrative couldn’t pin down.
She didn’t know where she was going—
only that she had to stay ahead of the story.
And behind her, the boys were getting closer.
But so were Meyer’s cracks.
And Aspen, delirious, reckless, barefoot, and stitched together, was running out of strength.
Aspen ran like something born half-feral, half-falling star, her fever lifting the world into a smear of silver and cold. Branches whipped her cheeks; wet leaves slapped her ankles. Her body—sixteen on the outside, twenty-six on the inside—stumbled through its own contradictions.
Too weak. Too strong. Too wild. Too scared. A trapped adult in a child’s sprint.
But the fear… the fear was ancient. Older than Twilight. Older than Meyer. Older than the pages that tried to cage her.
But the truth is she always been wild, on the edge of tomorrow, chaotic being of sorts, and most of all underlining sense of danger of fear beast. Like infinite chase scene between rabbit trying out run a hunting dog as that hunting dog trying out running its formal self or ancestor the wolf a circle of infinite being prey, surviving, or being alive seemed to be alive in Aspen's DNA.
All this time Aspen been repeating her to self for 26 years old of age there's something wrong with her- there something bad of her- she's all this wrong in this world but it was repeated messaging of her family since birth tethering her to the ground or a cage of their own creation.
Aspen knew—deep, marrow-deep—that she would never be normal.
She had begged for it once. On her knees, in her childhood room, hands shoved against the carpet as she prayed to the first God she ever knew:
“Make me normal. Make me good. Make me something that fits.”
But normal had never belonged to her.
Wildness had.
Chaos had.
Sharp laughter in the face of danger, primal fear to fuel her, and a beast that lived behind her ribs like it was waiting for someone to let it out.
Yes—she had once believed something was wrong with her. Her family told her so. Over and over. The way people talk an arrow into believing that tension is wrong. But really? The bowstring must tighten before it ever sings. Pressure is not brokenness. It’s design.
Aspen’s lungs squeezed tight; her chest hurt. But she felt alive, the most alive she’d been since dying into this storybook world.
She ducked behind pines, breath fogging in uneven bursts, her smile cracked wide like moonlight slicing open the dark. Bayaq—the raven—circled above, wings slapping the air in frantic warning. He could sense the cracks Meyer left like hidden roots meant to trip Aspen into obedience. He cawed sharply, urging her away.
But Aspen had a new idea.
A bad one.
A curious one.
A dangerous one.
Indigenous people always said: never whistle at night.
Especially not in forests.
Especially not when something may be listening.
Aspen never knew the reason behind it. In her real life, she’d whistled anyway—calling Eros, her dog, calling anything that might follow her, challenging shadows like she wanted them to dare.
So now?
With Meyer hunting her with ruptures in canon?
With the forest vibrating with looming supernatural futures?
Aspen’s fevered grin only widened.
“Let’s see what happens,” she whispered.
Bayaq let out a violent caw—DON’T—but she was already inhaling.
Already puckering her lips.
Already—
WHISTLING.
A long, low, perfect night-call note that slid into the trees like a blade pushed under a locked door.
And the world reacted.
Instantly.
Edward Cullen had heard thousands of thoughts in his unnatural life. Terrifying ones. Bloody ones. Hateful ones.
But Aspen’s fever thoughts?
Those were something else.
He had barely recovered from the moment he watched the window vanish into that impossible pocket dimension, glass warping in on itself like a devoured star. Aspen falling—no, plummeting—into nothingness. Something oceanic, something abyssal, something wrong swallowing her.
He’d screamed. Or croaked. Or made some strangled sound no vampire should ever make.
And then the girl reappeared on the ground outside like dropped cargo, the raven perched on her chest like it had delivered her from hell.
Now Edward watched her sprint into the forest, her body lurching between child, adult, and animal. His dead heart felt… tight. Too tight.
Carlisle and Esme reached him, gentle hands, soothing voices, but he couldn’t focus.
Because Aspen’s mind had been filled with—
“Meyer is trying to trap me again—don’t let her put me back in the psych ward—run run run—she’s rewriting—she’s cheating—she found a loophole—she’ll shove me into the narrative—”
Edward had never heard a human mind sound like a torn-open book screaming at its author.
Behind him, Sam crashed through the forest, Paul and Jacob following, the three moving as an accidental unit. Jacob shouted something at Paul—Paul grinned—both sprinted faster. Leah and Jared followed with Emmett stumbling behind like he was barely awake.
Inside, Trish was trembling; Aspen’s dad, Adán, stood protectively between her and the chaos. Quil, Seth, and Embry hovered around them, trying to soothe Trish as best three teenage boys could.
Edward’s eyes were locked on the tree line.
On Aspen.
On the wrongness in the air.
Then he froze.
Because Aspen had just—
whistled.
And the forest answered.
The note drifted, stretched, echoed too long for the amount of breath she used. The darkness shifted. The trees shivered as if something peeled itself off their shadows.
Leaves crackled. The air thickened.
Something in the space between worlds—between narrative seams—listened.
Bayaq’s feathers puffed high in alarm. He hopped onto a branch, wings half-spread, trying to shield Aspen with his shape.
Aspen, still smiling with fever delirium and the reckless curiosity of someone who’d outrun death twice in one night, whispered:
“…come and get me.”
Something answered back.
Not in English.
Not in any language.
But in a sound like the woods exhaling all at once.
A pressure wave.
A warning.
A greeting.
A threat.
Aspen’s smile faltered.
Finally—finally—fear caught up.
But before Meyer’s next trap could fully open beneath her, Bayaq slammed into Aspen’s shoulder, snapping her out of the way an instant before a tear in the air—a canon crack—ripped open right where she’d been standing.
Aspen stumbled, breath heaving, eyes wide.
“Oh,” she whispered. “That’s why you never whistle at night.”
The crack in the air shuttered open like a pulled zipper with no fabric — just space folding wrong.
Aspen skidded to a stop, breath freezing in her throat.
Because from inside that fracture…
A head emerged.
A massive, noble, shaggy wolf head — warm russet fur, dark eyes wide with confusion, a long muzzle trembling as it sniffed the air.
Jacob Black.
In full New-Moon-era wolf form.
But he wasn’t the Jacob of this forest.
He was the canon version. The one meant to be tracking Victoria on the cliffs. The one who should not, under any circumstances, be seeing Aspen.
Even Aspen—chaotic fever-brain, feral giggler, nightmare fugitive—knew the rules of time travel.
Harry Potter logic solemnly applied:
don’t meet your past or future self, don’t cross timelines, and never let someone from canon see a glitch.
Aspen’s first instinct was awe.
Her second was: Oh no. Oh no, oh no, that’s illegal in every fictional time-travel handbook ever.
Jacob’s wolf form stepped through the tear like stepping from one memory into another. He sniffed again, head bobbing low. Then—
a soft whine.
High-pitched. Concerned. Recognizing her.
Aspen slapped both hands over her mouth to stop her laughter. Because up close? Wolf-Jacob was stupidly beautiful.
Warm. Alive. Majestic in a way movies never did justice.
His fur caught the moonlight like burnished copper. His eyes were soft, too soft for something that could easily shred a car in half. Even his paws — huge, sturdy, snowshoe-wide — looked impossibly gentle.
He sniffed again.
Then he saw her.
And wagged his tail.
Aspen nearly died on the spot.
“NO—BAD,” she whisper-scolded him in her head. “Go home! You’re in the wrong tab—wrong universe—stop being cute—”
Jacob lowered his front half, tail wagging harder. It was a full dog invitation to come closer.
Bayaq shrieked.
The raven dove in front of Aspen, wings flaring, feathers raised, screaming a warning that rattled the branches. Aspen had never heard that sound from him before — primal, protective, furious.
Because behind the tear, behind Jacob’s wolf form, something else had slithered close.
Something that heard her whistle.
Something old.
Something the Quileute warn about.
The reason you don’t whistle after dark:
If you call, something will answer.
And sometimes, it’s not what you meant to call.
A sound rose behind Jacob — a clicking, scraping, bone-rattling rhythm. Not claws. Not teeth. Something like a human jaw forced to open too wide.
Something that shouldn’t be able to crawl between stories but now had the scent.
Aspen swallowed her fear.
“Bayaq—go!” she hissed.
The raven flapped wildly, shoving at her shoulder with his whole body.
Jacob’s ears shot up. He turned sharply toward the sound behind him, hackles rising, lips peeling back in a silent snarl.
For a terrifying second Aspen thought the creature behind him might enter her world.
Might follow her whistle.
Might—
Before that could happen, the tear snapped shut like a slammed door.
Right in Jacob’s face.
The version of him in front of her vanished with it.
The forest shook with heavy footfalls — not quite wolf-speed, but dangerously close to it. Sam burst through the undergrowth first, expression a perfect blend of Alpha instinct and what-the-hell-is-Aspen-doing-now exhaustion.
Leah followed like a blade, sharp-eyed and furious at the cold. Paul and Jacob (their Jacob, not the timeline-fractured one) flanked behind her, both panting hard.
Farther back, Edward and Emmett ran with pretend human speed — holding themselves back so badly it was like watching Ferraris pretending to be bicycles.
Edward’s thoughts shot ahead of him, pinwheeling with panic.
She’s injured—she’s hallucinating—she thinks she’s being hunted by the author—God, what if she is—
Emmett was mostly enjoying the chaos.
“Bro chill,” he muttered. “She’s faster than half the pack. Respectfully? Girl’s terrifying.”
Jacob snapped at him, “She’s not terrifying. She’s in trouble—move!”
Edward rolled his eyes. “You like her. It’s loud.”
Jacob bristled.
“Shut up, leech.”
“Your romantic brain is vibrating through the trees—”
“EDWARD,” Emmett warned lightly, “stop poking the wolf-boy before he actually bites you.”
Paul laughed breathlessly. “Do it. Bite him. I’ll pay you.”
Leah didn’t slow down once. “Both of you shut up. If Aspen’s out here whistling at night like an idiot she’s going to summon—”
But she didn’t finish the sentence.
Because they all heard it.
That clicking, scraping, too-human, too-wrong sound fading into the trees.
Sam stiffened violently.
Their training kicked in instantly — instincts overlapping, bodies forming a protective triangle around Jacob as if they moved in a war formation instead of as sleepy teenagers.
Jacob froze for only one heartbeat.
He wasn’t scared.
Not really.
He wasn’t chasing Aspen because of a crush — though yeah, okay, her laugh did things to him.
He was chasing her because Jacob Black always, always ran toward people who were running from danger.
It was in his bones.
Help first. Flirt later.
He scanned the woods, inhaling sharply.
And he smelled Aspen.
Terror. Fever. Hurt.
And something ancient she had accidentally woken up.
His heartbeat launched into overdrive.
“SAM—she’s close.”
Edward inhaled next and his face went hard, marble-like.
“She whistled,” he said quietly. “She called something.”
Leah cursed under her breath. “Girl’s gonna get murdered by something that doesn’t even have a name.”
Jacob didn’t hesitate.
He sprinted ahead.
The fever had finally tipped into bright, awful clarity — the kind that didn’t bring sanity but something sharper, animal-like, survival wired into bone.
Aspen stumbled through the trees until her foot caught on something thick and heavy. She grabbed it without thinking—a fallen fir branch nearly as long as she was tall. The wood was drenched, mossy, but solid.
A weapon.
Her first since the psych ward.
“Good enough,” she rasped, voice shredded.
Bayaq screamed overhead, flapping frantically down toward her shoulder, trying to shove her backward with his wings.
“Aspen—no—NO—stop—”
But Aspen was no longer listening.
Her blood ran too hot, too wild.
Because one of Meyer’s cracks had opened right beside her, pulsing like a wound in the world. Something was pushing through it—something tall, thin, jointed wrong, with fingers like splintered branches and a jaw that opened sideways.
It wasn’t a Twilight monster.
It was something the Quileute whispered about but didn’t name.
Something that should never step into the world of people.
Even Meyer—watching from some authorial dimension—was shrieking WHAT IS THAT?!
Too late.
It crawled out, clicking like loose teeth.
Aspen swung the branch.
CRACK.
A shriek split the forest—something like a baby crying through a broken radio.
Bayaq dove between them, talons slashing, wings flaring broad in a shape no raven should be able to make—shifting, stretching, his feathers seeming longer, darker, edged with an impossible shimmer.
“BACK!” Aspen yelled. “Get BACK in your stupid crack—we are NOT doing this tonight!”
She slammed the branch again.
And again.
Her fever made the world tilt.
Her fear made her unstoppable.
Her laughter made her sound unhinged.
Bayaq yelled at her in a voice half-raven, half-something ancient, “AS—PEN—MOVE!”
She refused.
She drove the creature back, blow by blow, until the thing shrieked and recoiled toward the tear in reality—its limbs bending backwards as it struggled to cling to the edges.
Aspen shoved it with her whole-body weight.
The crack snapped shut with a wet, final CLAP.
The forest went silent.
Aspen stood panting, hair sticking to her face, holding her massive branch like a baseball bat.
Bayaq landed on her shoulder, hissing in all directions.
“OH, now you chill?” she gasped. “NOW?! Really?!”
Sam sensed the crack before he saw it.
The world around him went wrong—pressure shifting like a storm inside his skull, the trees whispering backwards, the very air vibrating in a way no normal threat ever caused.
Time itself smelled split.
Then he heard the screams.
Not pack screams.
Not predator screams.
Aspen’s screams.
He ran harder, body instinctively preparing to phase even though he stayed human for the Cullens’ benefit.
When he finally skidded into the clearing—his heart nearly stopped.
Aspen was in the distance, illuminated by moonlight and raw chaos.
She was beating something invisible into the dirt with a tree-sized branch.
And yelling at a raven to “chill the fuck out.”
Sam dropped his hands to his knees and muttered through clenched teeth:
“…Can this night get any worse?”
But the answer came immediately:
Yes.
Because Bayaq shifted.
Not into human.
And not fully into bird.
But into some half-visible true form between shadow and feather—tall, spined, skeletal-wings unfolding like smoke. Not threatening Aspen.
Shielding her.
Sam’s Alpha instincts screamed.
This was not good.
This was older.
This was dangerous.
He tensed.
And Jacob crashed into the scene beside him.
Jacob froze mid-step.
“What the—”
He had expected Aspen running wildly. Maybe tripping over roots. Maybe crying.
He had not expected her to be:
-
holding a branch the size of a sofa
-
sweating through a hospital gown
-
panting like she’d outrun death
-
while a raven turned into—whatever that thing was—between her and the darkness
The creature in the crack had already vanished, but Jacob could still feel the wrongness of it.
Cold. Ancient. Hungry.
He shuddered.
Sam growled low. “Stay behind me.”
“Hell no,” Jacob snapped. “She needs help—”
“JACOB.” Sam’s voice was full Alpha now. “Something came through a tear in the world. And that raven isn’t a raven.”
Bayaq turned fully toward them—for one breath.
Jacob inhaled sharply.
Its form—whatever it was—was enormous, shimmering like heat waves, with too many eyes blinking beneath its wings. Its presence felt like the midpoint between deity and nightmare.
Jacob’s wolf spirit inside him bristled, ears pinned back.
He instinctively stepped closer to Sam.
But Aspen?
Aspen just waved her giant stick with a tired grin.
“I WON,” she croaked.
Jacob felt his heart drop into his shoes.
Every protective instinct he possessed lit on fire.
She looked exhausted, delirious, bruised.
But alive.
She laughed weakly at him.
“Hi, Jakey B.”
Jacob didn’t know whether to hug her or faint.
Behind them, the rest of the group caught up—Leah, Paul, Jared,
Edward, Emmett—skidding to a halt as they sensed the afterimage of the creature.
Leah’s jaw dropped.
Paul swore.
Jared looked ready to vomit.
Edward’s face was carved with horror.
Because he couldn’t read it.
Not the creature.
Not the crack.
Not Bayaq’s true form.
His voice cracked as he whispered:
“…I can’t hear any of it.”
Emmett muttered, “Damn. That’s…never good.”
Jacob kept staring at Aspen, breath shallow.
She’d fought something that shouldn’t exist.
And she’d done it laughing.
Jacob whispered under his breath:
“Why do you always run toward danger?”
But Aspen—wild and feverish—answered him with the most Aspen answer possible:
She lifted her weapon and said:
“Because danger runs faster than therapy.”
Jacob nearly screamed.
Chapter 11: Why are You like, This?! Because I Hate You So...
Summary:
Aspen's lore drop in this fictional world~
Carajo… esto es culpa de Paz,” he muttered, shaking his head. “La niña sale igual que su familia—locuras espirituales… o tal vez sólo esa genética maldita. = Damn... this is Paz's fault," he muttered, shaking his head. "The girl comes out just like her family—spiritual follies... or maybe just that cursed genetics.
“¿Por qué corres tanto, mija?” = "Why do you run so much, daughter?"
“Ojalá que la encontremos pronto, mija… por favor…” = "Hopefully we will find her soon, daughter... please..."
Notes:
I love humanity lol
A chef/line cook caught my attention at the moment, and I want to fight him. I lost- somehow, he maxed out in charm and seduction so now I slept with, he in my phone, and now I am something with him. He is like 30 recently, I am clueless how the fuck this happen- I swear I was trying just fight him- bro just skilled?
Souly has no clue also lady I wanted to date more into man than me! Oh, well- fuck?!
Man, I shouldn't have try fight him, now I am like uh- his stress relief partner?
Souly keeps getting seduced by men she wants to fight or show them how to fuck outta her personal space!
Uh- that least his eyes are the most hypnotizing I ever seen.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Adán stood near the wide glass window of the Cullens’ living room, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, jaw clenched so tightly his molars hurt. The house around him was impossibly elegant—clean lines, honey-soft wood, white walls that somehow made even the cold Washington forest look warmer.
It should have been a comforting place. But in Adán’s chest, anxiety churned like a storm tide.
He grunted under his breath, low, harsh, in the Spanish he retreated to whenever he was too tired to pretend strength.
“Carajo… esto es culpa de Paz,” he muttered, shaking his head. “La niña sale igual que su familia—locuras espirituales… o tal vez sólo esa genética maldita.”
The bitterness tasted rotten, but familiar. He’d been chewing on it for years.
Paz’s family always had stories—omens, visions, “gifts.” Things Adán dismissed for most of his marriage. Beautiful nonsense. But Aspen… Aspen arrived in this world already half-caught in something he couldn’t name.
Aspen—his baby, the youngest of three.
Adán Jr. was eleven years older, an Army veteran whose injuries never fully healed. Arlo, seven years older, patrolled the coast with the steadfastness of a man who sought calm seas because he couldn’t find them at home. And then Aspen—smallest in age, but the most explosive, the most volatile, the one who carried every unspoken fracture their family had tried to hide.
“Ay, Aspen…” he whispered, rubbing his hand over his face. “¿Por qué corres tanto, mija?”
He had moved to Forks to reset, to rebuild—working with Charlie Swan as part of a joint community safety program between the tribal lands and the town. Steady work, stable hours, a role meant to give him time to be a father again.
But Aspen kept running.
Kept disappearing.
Kept chasing ghosts only she could see.
And tonight—this disappearance—on land crawling with tensions he didn’t yet fully understand?
It threatened everything. His job. His stability. His conviction that he could fix things.
It threatened the last delicate hope he had that Aspen could still be saved.
He swallowed hard. The Cullens’ house smelled faintly of pine and warm linen. Carlisle and Esme moved quietly around the living room, settling Trish into a calmer state; her eyes still red from crying, her hands trembling as she tucked blankets over the sleeping figures sprawled across the luxurious, cream-colored rug.
Seth was curled into a half-shifted ball of warmth. Embry snored softly.
Quil twitched. Jasper and Alice lay unnaturally still, like porcelain dolls enchanted to sleep for a thousand years.
Trish brushed Embry’s hair aside with a care usually reserved for infants.
Adán watched her—watched the exhaustion sculpted into her face—and felt the familiar crack of guilt.
Aspen wasn’t bad.
Aspen had never been bad.
She was wounded. Hurt down to the bone. Ever since the assault, Paz had unraveled as a mother—unable to comfort Aspen, unable to control her rage, unable to understand the storm she’d become.
And finally, when she’d reached her limit…
She sent Aspen here.
With Trish.
And a five-page letter that said, between the lines, I can’t do this anymore. You handle her.
He exhaled shakily.
“Ojalá que la encontremos pronto, mija… por favor…”
Because tonight was the first time Aspen had run off into their territory. And Adán didn’t know whose rules applied anymore.
The forest breathed cold mist between the trees, leaves trembling like something unseen moved through them. Aspen stood in the middle of the clearing, fever-bright eyes blazing, sweat making strands of hair cling to her temples.
Her stick—her makeshift spear—was clenched so tightly her knuckles looked bloodless.
“Back. Off,” she barked, voice hoarse. “None of you are even real!”
She glared at everyone, eyes darting across wolves and vampires alike. Fever made the world shimmer—faces too symmetrical, too luminous, too cinematic to belong to real people. Somewhere in her spiraling mind, a cracked thought surfaced:
They’re not real. They’re the prettier version of the world. The fictional one.
And fictional characters couldn’t hurt her.
But the living ones did.
Edward stiffened, reading the chaotic fragments of her thoughts, and something cold slid down his spine.
“She… she thinks the creature is hunting her specifically,” he murmured.
Sam’s eyes darkened. Jared, Paul, and the others exchanged tense glances. The question hovered thick in the air:
Was Aspen a threat?
A victim?
Or something the forest wanted?
Paul’s hackles rose, but—for once—Jacob stepped beside him instead of in front of him.
“I’m backing Paul on this,” Jacob said quietly, gaze sharp on Edward.
“Something’s after her. And we’re not letting her get taken.”
It was strange—this new understanding between them. A simmering, growing respect that didn’t need words. Even before the wolf gene burned awake in them, they were beginning to fall into the rhythm of pack.
It was Leah who noticed it first.
Good, she thought dryly from the tree line. About damn time those two stopped acting like toddlers.
But her focus snapped back to Aspen as Emmett, moving with exaggerated slowness, stepped forward.
“Aspen,” he said gently, palms up. “Sweetheart, let me take that before you poke out someone’s eye, okay?”
Aspen hissed.
Bayaq—fully revealed now in his shimmering, otherworldly form—stood beside Emmett, towering and luminescent. His eyes were deep as the ocean floor, too ancient to be frightened by a feverish teenager. He nodded at Emmett.
Emmett plucked the stick from Aspen’s hands in one swift, practiced motion.
Bayaq exhaled sharply, relief washing through the clearing.
“Thank you,” he said in a voice only half-existing in the physical world—resonant, echoing, felt in the chest.
Aspen roared, not unlike an angry cornered animal.
“GIVE. IT. BACK!”
Her voice cracked—and for a moment, beneath the ferocity, everyone heard the raw fear.
The creature deeper in the woods stirred again, and every supernatural being in the clearing froze.
It wanted Aspen.
And the night had only just begun.
Paul Lahote had faced grown men, rival schools, annoying ex-boyfriends, and Sam’s temper on a bad day.
But nothing—absolutely nothing—prepared him for the thing crawling out of the crack behind Aspen.
The air changed first.
Cold. Heavy. Rancid.
Then the second crack tore open behind her, splintering the forest floor like a wound in the world.
Leah gagged from ten feet away.
Alice whimpered in her "sleep" back at the house without even knowing why.
Jacob’s wolf instincts screamed run.
Even Edward stumbled backward with a choked, “What—God—what is that—”
The Creature
It lurched forward, a thing built wrong on every level—
Six jointed limbs.
Skin the color of rotting kelp.
A head that split in three directions, like jaws that forgot how to be a face.
Eyes that didn’t match—two milky, two yellow, one black as the deepest ocean trench.
Its smell hit next—
Dead whales left too long in the sun.
Tide pools mixed with sulfur.
Old blood.
Wet fur.
Rot.
Even the wind avoided it.
It was one of the old coastal horrors, the kind whispered in Quileute and Makah stories —
a Ql’waq-thin, a split-being that hunted spirit-wanderers, vulnerable souls, and anyone marked by trauma or liminality.
Only elders even dared say its name.
Paul had only heard it once, as a child.
He never thought he’d see one breathing.
Everyone stood frozen for what felt like a year.
The creature lunged.
Aspen didn’t scream.
She moved—wild, feverish, adrenaline-mad—launching herself sideways so fast her bare feet tore open on the ground.
Bayaq materialized beside her, slamming a glowing, spectral barrier between her and the creature.
“MOVE!” he roared in a voice that shook tree branches.
Aspen listened.
Mostly.
She threw her hospital gown—muddy, torn, soaked—right into the creature’s snapping face.
For a terrifying second, it clamped onto the cloth like prey.
The group gasped.
Then they realized—
The body the creature had grabbed?
Was just the gown.
Aspen had slipped out of it and vanished into the shadows like a feral cat.
Paul’s brain glitched.
Aspen was…
Nude.
Probably.
Maybe.
Sort of.
There was mud smeared across her skin.
Shadow.
Branches.
Darkness helping hide her.
But the glimpse he got—
God, he wished he hadn’t noticed—
made him forget how lungs worked.
Paul’s jaw locked.
His ears burned.
His soul left his body.
Jacob made a strangled sound next to him, like someone choking on their own dreams.
Jared whispered, “Dude… did we… all just see—”
Edward cut him off with a horrified hiss.
“STOP thinking about it! ALL OF YOU!”
He slapped both hands over his face.
“WHY ARE YOU ALL THINKING IN SUCH LOUD DETAIL—”
Bayaq snapped sharply, voice slicing the chaos:
“Stop sexualizing Aspen. FOCUS.”
Every growing young adult male froze like guilty children caught by a cosmic parent.
Paul wanted to slam his head into a tree until he forgot the past twelve seconds.
Sam snapped out of the shock first.
He lunged toward Bayaq, transforming mid-step, fur exploding across his body in a burst of silver-black. the darkness of night of fur!
Emmett grabbed one of the creature’s limbs.
Edward another.
Sam another.
The beast shrieked—an ocean-floor sound, all pressure and death—trying to drag itself further into the world.
The ground cracked, glowing.
The tear pulsed.
“SHOVE IT BACK!” Sam ordered.
Sadly, only it came out in growls from Sam's chest.
The humans who were still mostly human—Jared, Leah, Paul, Jacob—joined in however they could, pulling vines, pushing rocks, throwing anything heavy onto the creature’s body to weigh it down.
Bayaq slammed spiritual force into its torso, chanting in a tongue older than the forest itself.
Together—barely—they shoved the Ql’waq-thin back through the crack.
With one final howl, the tear sealed.
Silence.
Breathing.
Then Sam snarled, “Where’s Aspen?”
Everyone looked around at the same time.
Aspen was gone.
Aspen sprinted through the underbrush like a terrified animal.
Her fever made her dizzy.
Her stitches pulled.
Her breath rasped in her throat.
Leaves slapped her skin.
Mud smeared everywhere.
Cold air burned.
Then—
a voice from above.
A voice that normally only appeared inside narrations and author’s interviews.
Meyer.
Not physically present.
More like a spotlight from heaven aimed directly at Aspen’s head.
“Aspen? Why—why are you like this?” Meyer sputtered. “You’re supposed to be… sick but manageable—not—this—feral—mud-covered—running-around-naked situation—”
Aspen didn’t stop running.
“I HATE YOU!” she screamed up at the sky.
Her voice cracked, raw and furious.
“STOP TALKING TO ME! STOP WRITING ME! LET ME GO!”
Meyer’s disembodied gasp echoed through the trees.
“…Sweetie, please, can you at least—find a crack and go through it to get some pants—”
“NO!”
Meyer hurriedly continued, voice trembling between maternal pity and authorial panic:
“You’re feverish, you have infected stitches, you’re human in a wolf-vampire universe, you’re not thinking clearly—”
Aspen growled.
Actually growled.
She found a lake—black mirror water—and knelt to splash her burning face, shivering violently.
“Meyer,” Aspen whispered harshly, “stop trying to trap me in plot. I want OUT.”
For the first time… Meyer didn’t order.
Didn’t guilt.
Didn’t narrate.
She hesitated.
Softened.
Almost human:
“…I’ll help them find you. But Aspen… please don’t die.”
Aspen didn’t answer.
She just stumbled deeper into the trees.
Paul tried not to think about the nakedness situation.
Really, truly, desperately tried.
But Jacob kept whispering, dreamily,
“Was that… mud… or—”
“Jacob,” Paul muttered, “shut your entire mouth.”
Edward groaned into his palms.
“PLEASE. Stop imagining Aspen’s body. ALL OF YOU. My brain is melting.”
Even Emmett coughed awkwardly.
Sam snapped at the group, “Eyes up. Minds up. Aspen is injured, scared, and loose in the forest. Bayaq—where do we start?”
Bayaq’s eyes turned toward the deeper trees—toward where the fevered girl had fled, leaving only footprints and fear behind.
“She’s running toward the lake,” Bayaq said. “Follow me.”
And with that, the hunt for Aspen began again.
Aspen reached the lake like an animal finally collapsing after a chase that lasted centuries.
Her breath steamed in the night air.
Her bare skin glowed with fever.
Her steps were uneven—half instinct, half delirium, wholly survival.
The lake was black and still, the surface perfectly undisturbed, like a mourning mirror.
Small night creatures watched her:
– a raccoon crouched beside a fallen log,
– tiny pale salamanders blinking slowly,
– mud-worms rising and sinking like breathing soil,
– fireflies blinking in solemn patterns.
They didn’t run.
They didn’t fear her.
They simply made space.
Aspen collapsed to her knees at the shore, hands trembling as she scooped water onto her burning face.
The world shimmered in her fever vision—colors too bright, shadows too thick, stars too close.
Then she saw her.
Herself.
The Ghost of Her Real Body
A figure lay hovering just above the water’s edge.
A 26-year-old woman.
Aspen-as-she-was in her hospital gown, skin pale, face soft, eyes closed.
Like she was sleeping.
Except tears rolled silently down her ghost’s cheeks.
Aspen gasped.
Her heart hammered.
She reached out a shaking hand.
“Hey… hey, don’t cry. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m—”
Her fingers brushed the ghost’s cheek—
And the ghost broke apart.
Not violently—
but tenderly.
Like she turned into drifting fireflies, floating up like soft, golden memories.
Aspen whispered, “Please don’t leave me.”
The fireflies swirled, reshaped—
into a toddler.
Little Aspen, maybe two years old, in a tiny onesie, translucent and glowing, toddled away giggling silently, her feet not touching the ground.
“Hey!” Aspen croaked, staggering upright.
“Come back— I can’t run— slow down—”
But toddler-Aspen ran faster than physics allowed, like childhood itself—brief, bright, impossible to catch.
Aspen followed anyway.
Because toddlers weren’t born evil.
Because innocence was the one thing she still trusted.
The toddler led her to the lake’s center, where the water glowed with a faint, unnatural pulse.
A crack shimmered beneath the surface, like an underwater doorway.
The toddler pointed.
Then stepped backward and broke into fireflies again, spiraling down into the crack.
Aspen swallowed.
“…Okay. Okay. I trust you.”
She dove.
The current seized her.
Not painfully—
but firmly, like hands guiding her spine.
She spun.
She sank.
She rose.
The world thinned to a glowing backbone of stories, threads of narratives twisting around each other like celestial DNA.
Through a blur of colors and centuries, Aspen fell into—
She surfaced gasping into a moonlit lake surrounded by willow trees and ancient Italian stone walls.
Night.
Stars.
Torches.
Perfume of roses.
And a girl’s voice reading aloud softly:
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes…”
Aspen winced.
“Oh my GOD. No. No, no, no, not this.”
A younger Meyer sat on a distant stone bench, reading Romeo & Juliet to herself, utterly unaware of Aspen.
Aspen dragged herself out of the water—
And the water transformed.
It dripped off her skin and reshaped as fabric, swirling upward into a gown:
rich velvet, layered lace, pearl embroidery, Renaissance sleeves, jeweled girdle.
Her hair braided itself with ribbons.
A gold headdress settled softly onto her skull.
Aspen stared down.
“…Meyer, I swear to God, stop playing dress-up with me.”
She rolled her eyes so hard the moon flinched.
“I hate Shakespeare so fucking much. I prefer El Cid. It has swords, honor, and fewer idiots.”
But the warmth of the era pressed around her.
Torches flickered.
Music drifted.
Somewhere, lovers’ destinies prepared to collide.
Aspen muttered,
“If this is torture, fine. If it’s a lesson, double fine. Just don’t make me dance with Romeo.”
Paul ran behind Bayaq, feet pounding the forest floor, lungs burning with effort and embarrassment.
He kept seeing it.
Seeing her.
That moment in the forest—
the mud, the fever-glow on her skin, the shadows protecting her.
He wanted to punch his own frontal cortex into the dirt.
Jacob jogged beside him, dazed like he’d swallowed a firework.
“Dude… did you actually see—?”
Paul snapped, “Jacob. Don’t.”
Jacob shut his mouth.
Mostly.
Leah, ahead of them, rolled her eyes so viciously it was almost an attack.
“Boys,” she muttered, “can’t go five seconds without their brains leaking out their ears.”
Edward groaned loudly from the side.
“PLEASE stop replaying that moment in your heads. I feel like someone is sandpapering my soul.”
Emmett burst into a cackle.
“Bro, same. It’s like—AH!—NO!—DON’T THINK ABOUT IT—okay now I’m DEFINITELY thinking about it—”
Edward swatted the back of his head.
“YOU HAVE NO INTERNAL FILTER.”
Sam ran at the front with Bayaq, still wearing the clothes the spirit had gifted him, breathing hard, eyes blazing.
He muttered under his breath:
“Vampires. Cracks. Monsters from legends. Spirit guides. MY OWN BODY shifting—”
He inhaled shakily.
“This is too much.”
Bayaq answered calmly,
“You are becoming what you were meant to be.”
Leah stared between Sam and Edward.
“Wait—so you’re saying they—”
She pointed at the Cullens.
“—are really vampires?”
Edward grimaced but nodded.
Leah exhaled.
“Okay. Cool. Nightmare fuel.”
Jared whispered,
“If vampires are real… does that mean we might—”
Paul felt a cold spike in his gut.
Wolf.
The word hovered unspoken.
Sam stiffened.
He didn’t want to confirm it.
But he did.
Quietly.
“Yes.”
Jacob stopped mid-stride like someone had unplugged him.
“What do you mean YES?!”
Sam’s voice was low, steady, terrified, sure:
“It’s only a matter of time.”
The group fell silent.
Only the forest moved, shifting around them.
Guiding them.
Toward Aspen.
Paul swallowed hard, a knot forming in his throat he didn’t recognize.
Her scent was faint.
Her tracks wild and chaotic.
Her fever energy scattered everywhere.
She was alone.
Sick.
Naked.
Terrified.
His chest tightened painfully.
He didn’t know why.
He didn’t know what this instinct was.
He only knew—
“We have to find her,” Paul said, more urgent than he intended.
“She’s… she’s not safe.”
Bayaq’s gaze softened a fraction.
“Good. You feel it too.”
Paul’s heartbeat thudded unevenly.
Feel what?
He didn’t know.
He wasn’t ready to know.
But he ran faster anyway.
Aspen exhaled hard enough to fog glass—if there had been any glass in this weird time-fractured Shakespeare pocket reality. She wasn’t sure why the crack dumped her here.
Maybe the universe wanted her to humanize Meyer (good luck).
Maybe it wanted to show her why forbidden love stories had survived hundreds of years.
Or maybe it just wanted to test her patience around Elizabethan people who behaved like they’d never seen a tan, brown-skinned girl before.
The whispers hit her the second she stepped through the marble archway into the Capulet ballroom.
A hush.
A stare.
A few gasps that bordered on “does she carry disease?” curiosity.
Aspen rolled her eyes so hard she could see her own brain. Of course.
Young Meyer must’ve thought only white people existed in the past. Or that joy had a racial exclusivity clause. That old Mormon-flavored worldview leaking into fiction again.
But Aspen refused to shrink.
She stepped forward—heels clicking, skirt swaying—and every candle in the ballroom seemed to lean toward her. The musicians faltered. Even the fabric of the masquerade shimmered as though adjusting to her presence.
Did she steal the spotlight?
Absolutely.
She didn’t even mean to.
She simply was the spotlight.
Romeo noticed first—wide eyes, charming smile freezing on his lips as if he’d seen the sun enter the room.
Mercutio noticed second, but far louder.
“Oh ho! A goddess has descended! Gentlefolk, I call dibs on being slain by her beauty!”
Even Tybalt paused mid-scowl, which was saying something for Tybalt.
Juliet, bless her, stared like she’d just discovered a new constellation.
Aspen ignored most of them, swatting away a persistent suitor who tried to grab her hand. He recoiled when Aspen’s glare hit him—apparently even in this reality, her “don’t try me” energy translated fluently.
But the real gravity in the room wasn’t theirs.
It was the voice.
Young Meyer’s voice—disembodied, reading lines from somewhere above, somewhere outside reality. The narration seeped through the chandeliers, trying to guide the story like a puppeteer tugging strings.
Aspen felt it tug at her, too.
She tugged back.
This was her moment now.
Miles away—no, worlds away—the group stood at the lake’s edge, where reality had torn open like a wound. The crack pulsed faintly, still humming with the residue of Aspen having been pulled through.
Paul felt his stomach twist.
He didn’t like the silence that hit everyone at once.
Didn’t like the fear.
Sam crouched near the fracture, sniffing the air with Alpha precision.
Leah folded her arms tight, jaw clenched.
Jared hovered between wanting to help and wanting to nope out of existence.
Jacob stared at the misty edges like he could brute-force them open.
Edward and Emmett stood a few feet back, their marble faces pale even for vampires.
Bayaq stepped forward first, expression unreadable. He’d felt Aspen’s path through the crack. He knew she had survived—but he also knew the others wouldn’t accept “she’s fine” without proof.
So, he simply said, “She passed through here. She’s alive. But you must remain calm.”
And for about three seconds, that worked.
Then Emmett swore under his breath—loud, sharp, not at all his usual himbo-level profanity. Everyone turned just in time to see him clutching something to his chest.
Soft fabric.
Pink satin.
Lace trim.
A neatly-folded set of Rosalie’s pajama shorts and tank top—delicate, expensive, far too intimate for anyone except Rosalie herself to handle.
And Emmett wasn’t holding them like a brother-in-law would.
He held them like they were the last piece of someone he loved.
Paul’s brows shot up. Those pajamas were definitely made for someone over eighteen.
He glanced at Leah, who already looked five seconds from homicide.
She was the first to scream.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!”
Her voice echoed across the lake, making the crack tremble faintly.
Emmett swallowed, voice breaking as he whispered,
“Rosalie… she—she jumped in after Aspen. I think she… tried to save her.”
The group froze.
Even Edward sucked in a breath.
Sam’s spine stiffened.
Jacob’s heartbeat stuttered.
Paul felt something in his chest drop.
Rosalie.
The one person Emmett would burn the world for.
Bayaq stepped between Emmett and the crack before the vampire could throw himself in after her.
“Stop.” His tone was calm, grounding. “If you jump now, you will not land where she landed. The rift is unstable. You may tear yourself apart.”
Emmett shook, torn between love and terror.
Bayaq raised both hands—steady, authoritative.
“We will track them properly. Aspen left signatures in the air—marks only I can follow. But none of you are to leap in blindly. That is not bravery. That is suicide.”
Even Leah quieted.
Sam finally nodded.
Edward lowered his head.
Jacob stepped back.
Emmett didn’t.
Not until Bayaq placed a firm hand on his shoulder and said softly,
“She is not lost. Neither is Aspen. Trust me.”
And somehow—shockingly—
Emmett did.
Rosalie Hale stumbled into the pocket dimension with the grace of someone who’d leapt blindly into danger purely out of stubborn love — but landed like a queen anyway.
The world around her shimmered with golden candlelight and Renaissance perfume. Lutes and violins sang from balconies. The Capulet ballroom stretched wide with marble floors polished to a mirror's gleam.
Her outfit had transformed through the crack — as though the universe insisted she match the era.
And Rosalie… looked devastating.
Her Outfit
-
A deep rose-gold Renaissance gown, fitted bodice laced with metallic embroidery.
-
The neckline curved elegantly over her collarbones, modest yet powerful.
-
Sleeves — long, sheer, trailing with pearl-threaded ribbons.
-
The skirt: layers of silk and brocade, tinted warm like sunrise and lined with gold panels that flared as she moved.
-
On her feet: velvet slippers dyed mulberry purple, embroidered with tiny roses.
Accessories
-
A delicate masque — half-face — made of gilded filigree shaped like blooming flowers.
-
A braided gold belt with a dagger sheath (the dagger was decorative… probably).
-
Hair pinned in a Renaissance twist, studded with freshwater pearls.
-
Her vampiric beauty amplified by candlelight until she looked like something poets would sell their souls to describe.
But Rosalie saw none of it at first.
Her sharp eyes scanned the ballroom, expecting a drowned Aspen, a broken body, a tragedy—
Instead… she saw Aspen very much alive.
Laughing.
Dancing.
Flirting.
And not with a teenager.
A tall, dark-haired man in his late twenties — early thirties at most — was leaning down to whisper something in the ear of a teenage-bodied Aspen. His mask shaped like a lion’s head; his attire richly tailored — a nobleman of the house, easily.
Lord Capulet’s cousin.
The one the playwright mentioned once and promptly ignored.
A grown man.
Rosalie froze.
Not out of jealousy.
Not out of confusion.
But because Aspen — Aspen, who everyone believed to be a teenager — was letting him kiss her hand.
Rosalie’s mouth dropped in horrified, maternal shock.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
And she beelined across the ballroom, skirts swishing like a storm.
Aspen didn’t notice the vampire-shaped meteor approaching.
She was too busy not judging Juliet — because honestly? She got it.
Puppy love between two dramatic teens? Sure. Aspen watched from the corner of her eye as Juliet giggled behind her fan while Romeo stared at her like he'd invented adoration. Cute.
Aspen turned back to the man she was dancing with — her accidental suitor.
HIM — The Cousin
Late twenties, maybe early thirties.
Brown hair curling at the ends.
Soft scruff.
A smile that looked like warm bread and dangerous wine.
And the kind of charm that came with adult confidence — not boyish stuttering.
“Your eyes,” he murmured in a low baritone, “outshine every star above Verona.”
Aspen snorted.
“Sir, please. The stars are doing their best.”
He laughed. She liked the sound — rich, deep, self-assured.
Did she flirt back? Oh, absolutely.
Being trapped in a teen body didn’t make her suddenly interested in teenagers.
And he didn’t seem bothered by the height difference — thought she was simply petite.
The universe knew Aspen was twenty-six.
She knew she was twenty-six.
Rosalie, unfortunately, would not care about technicalities. Even if Rosalie dare believes Aspen. (Which Rosalie didn't believe Aspen was 26)
Aspen twirled as he guided her through a dance, her dress catching golden light — and she didn’t notice the murderous beauty approaching behind her like divine retribution in brocade.
Rosalie stopped dead three feet away, jaw clenched so tight she could crack marble.
Aspen.
Aspen.
Flirting.
With a grown man.
In a teenager’s body.
On a dance floor.
In Shakespeare’s Verona.
While Rosalie had nearly thrown herself across timelines to save her.
And Aspen was LAUGHING.
Rosalie’s voice came out low, dangerous, “Aspen. A word.”
Aspen didn’t hear.
The cousin lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles.
Rosalie saw red.
There was no blood in her body, and she saw red anyway.
Meanwhile, the real timeline was devolving into a circus.
Paul was two seconds from throttling Jacob.
Jacob kept pacing near the crack muttering,
“She could be hurt—Rosalie could be hurt—Aspen could be—”
Paul cut in, “The only naked girl you’ll ever see is if you jump in there and get evaporated, idiot.”
Jacob spun on him.
“Oh yeah? And how many girls have you seen naked, Paul?!”
Paul smirked. “More than you. And I didn’t need a time rift to do it.”
Jacob lunged. Jared grabbed him.
Leah yelled at Sam.
Sam yelled back.
Edward tried to hold up a half-sobbing Emmett who looked seconds from curling into fetal position.
Leah screamed,
“You were a wolf for MONTHS and you didn’t TELL ME?!”
Sam shot back, “I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO TELL YOU YOU’D THINK I WAS A FURRY—”
“WHAT?!”
Bayaq rubbed his temples.
The trickster-raven spirit was ancient. Wise. Patient.
He had lost all three virtues today.
He watched his young wolves argue, the vampires sulk, Jacob and Paul nearly fight, and Emmett mourn Rosalie’s pajamas like a widower at a gravesite.
Bayaq sighed, long and ancestral.
“I am too old for this.”
He debated his options:
-
Let the teens keep having emotional breakdowns?
-
Calm them with a stern speech?
-
Or just open a safer portal he’d been trying to prepare—
the one that wouldn’t shred their souls?
Morally, he should warn them first.
Ethically…
Well, ethics were flexible for tricksters.
But mostly?
He was tired of Paul taunting Jacob and Jacob threatening to swan-dive into the crack.
So Bayaq raised his hand, feathers rippling along his arm, and murmured,
“Fine. We’re doing this my way.”
And with a shimmer of raven-black light,
the safer portal snapped open behind him.
Notes:
Aspen's lore very high key watered down for Meyer's taste! Meyer made a "better version of Aspen's real background" for Aspen being in her world!
REMINDERS: I AM NOT OF Quileute tribe and other coastal tribes!!!! SO, SOME MY SHIT MIGHT BE WRONG OR NOT CORRECT, PLEASE SUPPORT THEM BECAUSE EVERY LIFE DESERVES BETTER TREATMENT AND BASIC FUCKING HUMANITY!
Try to be kind and understand, please to the tribes and their people because they are as important and loved by world, they are humans just like us, with dreams and such not just these "mythical beings" they legit people (lol I can't believe I have to say this but uh don't dehumanize them?!)
Also, I made Aspen naked because it's funny- it based off something my real life- it was so bad like I got sick couldn't shower because I almost injured myself and someone had to help me!
Someone called me old today- I think I am in love- I love looking my age- no more fucking you look 16 shit, I will be now on saying you fucking liar I am toughly looking 27, okay?! Fuck off with that bullshit- I hate it when you look young like 16- hello, I am calling the police bitch! sTTTOp it- I don't like hearing it, so gross I am grown!
Chapter 12: To Be- To Not Be- To Be Fucking Ridicule You Dense Bitch!
Summary:
I make Aspen get kissed and made out with- it's not ethical in her situation at the moment.
Like Aspen doesn't get grip until maybe next chapter finally accepting her faith somewhat being stuck in teen body and trying help Bayaq with his major plan to make sure his people are safe here in this world!
Notes:
Souly is confirmed menace- I feed Eros apple- lol he didn't want apple he gave me stink eye and I was trying to kiss his little forehead!
Eros is happy but tired of my bullshit, I keep bucking like dog to my coworkers and friends- I think I spend too much time with my dog Eros now I am doing a bit too many doglike habits oof- more dog than human habits- lol
Right now, he cuddly near my feet and sleeping in his favorite position.
I love him lol oh yesterday I saw a bee, bee didn't leave me alone, it was confused by me and thought I was a walking flower!
I mean more shit happened to me but I only care about the fucking bee! Also a baby at work called me dada- but I am not the father- hahah me as an expo at local cafe looking at the baby in shock! Trying not to freakout over being paternal figure to this random that refuse stop calling me dada or da.
It was strange- I was serving and I don't think that screams big dad energy!
Baby scared me with their big blue eyes happily giggling and babbling then to point at me going with a giggle along with munching grin dada! He was eating some eggy or something soft I guess, I only serve, bussed the tables, be kiss ass for the job, and try not get fired. It made me rethink my life like was I really that baby's father?
Am I a papa?
Hmmm- nah- like I know I am not the dad, but do I give off dad energy? like wtf bro, I am father figure not mother figure? I am not mommy? Never a mother always the father :0 Like I don't want to act like my sperm donor or represent a father- shit, maybe I just be masculine, too masculine at work? Good job baby, now I don't know if I would be a good father or mother to one you small beings! Baby made me embarrassed for rest my shift because I was like fuck do really look ugly as fuck like my own daddy right now? That baby probably knows dada; I can't blame him but made me question if I have material instincts or I am gonna be bum daddy like my own dad!
I got to do better not only for this random baby but for myself and universe- he was very cute baby too.
Shit- gender be weird, I also befriend and allied with one my coworkers he is 25, we try to do best to help each other the most, sometimes you gotta be willing to roll most to all silverware for someone because they help you carry all the heavy trash on your behalf! Most the trash ends up being half my size if I am honest with y'all as someone who is 5'1" and not built like tank that shit heavy- I hate it- I am fighting physics when I have to carry that bitch out!
Anyway, I love most all my coworkers but one- I have to remind myself he just 20 years old with issues that aren't mine to solve but he wants to fucking fight sometimes because he- I have nothing nice to say about him at the moment. I will be civil as an adult, I will be caring and respectful, but I try not to be near him.
Last time he made me scream in fear and panic then he started mocking my screams! Like bro ;( I am trying to work because I need money and you laughing at me? You fucking did this- you scared the shit out me! WE ON CLOCK AND YOU LAUGHING AT ME?! He just dick and I can't fix that. (Everyone is like he just like that- bro sucks and is off his meds making it our problem!)
I know some gossip of them- they'll probably find out I fucking slept with chef/line cook which is so lame- I hope not haha I can't deal with it. He is not embarrassing, he just like not my usual type...which used to be military guys and shit.
Also, I know his brother so it would be awkward. I think I am more ashamed of the fact I had sex again- big failure- me- I am the failure; I was trying to be pure of mind for myself and not in love or lusting or into a man ever again.
Maybe I am not failure maybe it's the anxiety of giving fuck and being open scares me the most.
Welp, I failed big time... hmmm the bee was fucking cool though.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Rosalie seized Aspen by the wrist with the iron grip of a vampire who had reached her limit for the evening. Aspen yelped but allowed herself to be pulled toward a shadowed alcove behind velvet curtains.
“Aspen,” Rosalie hissed, “what were you thinking? That man is thirty!”
Aspen leaned in close, whispering frantically, “I am thirty!—okay fine, twenty-six! Meyer shoved my adult mind into this teen body. I swear. I'm not some child sneaking off with a grown man.”
Rosalie blinked.
Then narrowed her golden eyes.
It was the same expression Bella had once described as: "Rosalie deciding whether to believe you or shove you into a dumpster.” Well if Meyer ever let Bella think such things of course!
“Aspen,” Rosalie said slowly, “you have a fever, you drowned, you’re in a pocket dimension, and now you’re telling me you have the mind of a grown woman. Sweetheart, that’s not—”
“IT’S TRUE,” Aspen whispered harshly. “I remember my apartment lease and my Walmart receipts, for God’s sake—”
But Rosalie’s disbelief was granite solid.
“Your fever is climbing,” she murmured. “You’re hallucinating maturity.”
Aspen nearly screamed.
Before Rosalie could deliver her next lecture on appropriate Renaissance conduct—
a hand clamped onto her shoulder and yanked. Hard.
The man who spun Rosalie around wore:
-
A black velvet doublet embroidered with silver vines
-
A silver-and-black mask shaped like a wolf
-
Dark curls brushing his jaw
-
Eyes the unnatural gold of a predator
He had no name in Shakespeare’s text.
He existed only in the corners of Meyer’s restless imagination.
A proto vampire.
A young idea of “beautiful danger.”
“Unhand the girl,” he growled at Rosalie, voice cold, elegant, and dripping with suspicion. “This is a sacred house. I will not allow your kind to feed here.”
Rosalie stared.
A Renaissance man… accusing her of feeding?
HER??
She inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring.
“I’m not here to feed,” she snapped. “I’m here to retrieve someone who keeps finding new ways to nearly die.”
The proto vampire stepped closer until their masks nearly touched.
“You reek of death,” he murmured. “Your aura chills this hall.”
Rosalie’s fists curled.
Before she could break his mask in half—
Aspen slipped away like a greased ferret.
She was already darting back across the ballroom, weaving through dancers, returning directly to Lord Capulet’s handsome cousin.
Who looked delighted to see her.
Aspen let herself be spun into the man’s arms again, pretending Rosalie wasn’t about to commit homicide behind her.
Juliet watched them from across the room, fan lifted, looking both confused and mildly jealous — but Aspen just winked at her.
“Enjoy your night, girl. Ignore the drama. Teen love is precious.”
Juliet blushed, then ran off to find Nurse.
Meanwhile Aspen’s suitor murmured, “Your guardian seems fierce.”
“She worries too much,” Aspen said with a shrug and a grin.
But her stomach flipped with fever and exhaustion.
She kept dancing anyway.
Back in the real world, Bayaq shoved, dragged, and herded the entire pack and coven into the safer portal like a stressed daycare teacher wrangling supernatural toddlers.
“Single file—SINGLE FILE—PAUL DO NOT THROW JACOB IN FIRST—”
Into the portal they went, one after another—
—landing in Verona.
And immediately?
Chaos.
The portal forced period clothing onto each person.
Bayaq
-
Black feathered cloak
-
Raven mask
-
Dark tunic threaded with opalescent beadwork
-
Boots made of soft, black-dyed hide
He looked ancient and regal — a walking legend.
Edward
-
White poet’s shirt, open at the throat
-
Silver vest
-
Midnight-blue velvet doublet
-
Mask shaped like a crescent moon
He looked like a Renaissance fever dream.
Emmett
-
Sleeveless leather jerkin (showing off arms he definitely wanted Rosalie to appreciate)
-
Matching leather boots
-
Mask shaped like a bear
-
Tight trousers he immediately tugged at
“Why are these pants so SMALL?!”
Jacob
-
Loose white shirt
-
Brown leather vest
-
Boots with folded cuffs
-
Mask shaped like a wolf pup
He looked aggressively adorable. He hated it.
Paul
-
Black doublet
-
Red sash (he immediately tried to rip off)
-
Mask shaped like a hawk
-
Boots he kept kicking things with
His whole aura said: I hate this. I hate everything.
Jared
-
Simple brown-and-cream outfit
-
Mask shaped like a fox
He looked like a troublemaker from a children’s storybook.
Leah
-
Deep emerald Renaissance gown
-
Gold-bound braids
-
Mask shaped like a wildcat
She was breathtaking and furious simultaneously.
Sam
-
Dark hunter-green doublet
-
Fur-lined cloak
-
Mask shaped like a full wolf
He looked like a medieval king who’d seen too much.
Jacob burst out laughing at Paul’s sash.
Paul nearly tackled him.
Leah shoved Sam, snarling,
“Don’t think matching masks FIX ANYTHING—”
Emmett was spinning in circles whining,
“ROSE WOULD LOVE THIS OUTFIT, I LOOK AMAZING, WHERE IS SHE—”
Edward pressed his fingers to his temples, exhausted,
“Please stop thinking loudly—please—”
Bayaq finally whistled sharply.
Everyone froze.
Bayaq’s Annoyed Speech
“We are here to retrieve Aspen and Rosalie,” Bayaq said darkly.
“She should not be in this dimension, nor should I, nor should ANY OF YOU FOOLS.”
He folded his feathered arms.
“And I swear Meyer is trying to keep me trapped here to torture me for eternities. If you wander off, I leave you behind.”
Silence.
Even Paul shut up.
Emmett entered the ballroom first.
The moment he stepped inside:
Candlelight.
Laughter.
Perfume.
Music.
Masks.
Silk.
And then—
He saw her.
Rosalie.
Not distressed.
Not injured.
But locked in a heated standoff with some Renaissance pretty-boy who looked like he wanted to duel her.
Emmett’s entire body tensed.
“Hey,” he muttered, voice dropping to a rumble. “Who the HELL is that guy?”
Then his eyes slid across the dance floor—
—and landed on Aspen.
Smiling.
Dancing.
With a man twice her supposed age.
Emmett whispered,
“…oh crap.”
He turned to the group.
“Guys,” he said, fear dawning, “we got like three problems.”
He pointed.
“One: Rosalie’s about to fight a vampire-Renaissance-man.
Two: Aspen’s flirting with Cousin Capulet.
Three:
SHE LOOKS WAY TOO HAPPY FOR A GIRL WHO NEARLY DIED TWICE TODAY.”
Behind him, Paul whispered,
“…bro she’s gonna kill us if she dies again.”
Jacob added,
“…or if she kisses that guy.”
Edward groaned loudly,
“CAN ALL OF YOU STOP HAVING INAPPROPRIATE THOUGHTS—”
Emmett braced himself.
Because the next five minutes?
Were going to be absolute hell.
The ballroom flickered with gold candlelight as a voice — young, bright, excited — floated through the air like a narrator trapped between worlds.
Stephanie Meyer.
Age maybe fourteen.
Reading Romeo & Juliet for the first time.
Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”
A hush swept the room.
Rosalie froze mid-argument.
Edward stiffened.
Jared’s mouth dropped.
Leah whispered, “What the actual—”
And Sam?
Sam’s heart pounded once with the weight of revelation.
Because they all knew that voice.
Not personally.
But as the voice that… wrote them.
Edward’s eyes widened in horror.
“Oh no,” he breathed. “No, no, no—”
Emmett slapped both hands over his face.
“OH MY GOD WE ARE IN A BOOK!”
Rosalie murmured, frozen:
“…Aspen wasn’t hallucinating.”
Jacob exhaled sharply, “We’re fictional—? Like… characters?”
Leah blinked rapidly, then shook her head hard.
“No. Nope. Not doing this. I refuse to exist ironically.”
And then—
Paul snorted, arms crossed, shaking his head with pure vindication.
“See? SEE? I TOLD YOU she ain’t crazy.”
He jabbed a thumb toward Rosalie and the proto-vampire.
“And now I gotta go break up the blond vs. discount-Dracula debate before the idiot draws steel.”
Bayaq clapped sharply, feathers rustling.
“No time for existential crises!
IF ONE OF YOU FOOLS STARTS A DUEL, THE AUTHOR WILL LOCK US HERE FOR FIFTY CHAPTERS!”
He shoved the whole group forward after Paul.
The proto-vampire stood tall, elegant, and offended by Rosalie’s beauty and audacity.
He hissed:
“You freeze the air around you. Your very breath screams predator.”
Rosalie lifted her chin.
“I am not here to kill anyone.
I am here because a girl I protect keeps nearly dying.”
“But you are a death-creature,” he insisted. “A child of the night.”
Emmett growled behind her.
Edward was smoothing his hair like this stress was ruining his immortal aura.
Before the proto-vampire could throw more accusations—
Sam stepped forward.
Alpha aura radiating from him like slow thunder.
Sam inclined his head slightly in respect.
“We do not break our word.
Our families formed a treaty long before tonight.
These three—Rosalie, Edward, Emmett—do not drink human blood.”
Every Cullen blinked.
Even Rosalie.
Edward whispered:
“…Sam… vouched for us.”
Leah stared at Sam like she saw him for the first time.
Jared mouthed “Whoa.”
Jacob frowned, confused but impressed.
Paul was amused.
The proto-vampire studied Sam as if recognizing a fellow leader.
“A wolf-speaker. Bound by spirit. You hold weight here.”
Sam held steady.
“We ask to pass peacefully. And to retrieve the girl who arrived with Rosalie.”
Silence.
Then—
The proto-vampire’s posture shifted.
Respect.
Recognition.
A slight nod.
“You may search freely. I grant you safe passage.”
Bayaq’s eyes gleamed with pride.
“Well done, young Alpha.”
He tapped Sam’s shoulder with a feathered hand.
“You handled that better than half the grown spirits I know.”
Sam tried not to blush.
Meanwhile, Aspen was pressed against a stone column in a private alcove off the ballroom, lips parted, heartbeat too fast.
Lord Capulet’s cousin had her caged between his arms.
And Aspen?
She was letting him.
His thumb brushed under her jaw.
Her fever tingled at her skin, her teenage body reacting with embarrassing enthusiasm.
“You move unlike any girl in Verona,” he murmured, eyes hungry.
“You burn hotter than summer.”
Aspen closed her eyes.
Her adult mind whispered:
This is wrong. He thinks you’re a teen. You’re acting like a teen because your body is one.
Her teenage hormones whispered:
Shut up and kiss him.
The cousin leaned in, breath warm on her cheek.
“Aspen,” he murmured, “tell me your secrets.”
Her pulse hammered.
She realized — with horror but also dizzy exhilaration —
she was one second away from making out with a Shakespearean extra.
“This is so unethical,” Aspen whispered.
And then—
His lips brushed hers—
And Aspen cursed under her breath,
“Oh my God, I am being STUPID.”
But the fever, the adrenaline, the surreal magic?
They were all making her stupid indeed.
As Rosalie, Emmett, Edward, the wolves, and Bayaq regrouped to search—
Juliet stepped directly into their path.
A tiny vision in pearl-pink gown, white mask, bright eyes.
She gasped.
Then dropped into a reverent curtsey.
“Oh!
Are you… gods?”
Rosalie blinked.
Edward looked horrified.
Emmett tried to puff out his chest.
Juliet stared up at Rosalie with pure awe.
“You shine like a celestial maiden.”
Rosalie muttered, “Oh Jesus Christ—”
Juliet then turned to Edward.
“And you—are you Apollo? Or the Moon Prince?”
Edward made an awful choking sound.
She turned to Emmett:
“And you must be a titan.”
Emmett, brightening:
“I mean, I lift—”
Juliet finally looked at Leah, Sam, Jared, Jacob.
“Oh! Wolves!
Exotic nobles from northern mountains!”
Jacob whispered, “Bro. We’re nobles.”
Jared grinned.
Leah preened a little.
Sam bowed with dignity.
And for once—
Bayaq didn’t scold them.
He looked around the ballroom — the dancing, the music, the masks, the warmth — and sighed softly.
“…All right,” he said. “Fine.
Ten minutes.”
His feathers glimmered gold in candlelight.
“Enjoy yourselves.
Be young.
Be alive.”
Even a trickster spirit felt the intoxicating pull of a living, breathing story.
But he added, voice dropping to a warning rumble:
“Then we retrieve Aspen. Before she rewrites the entire play.”
Notes:
I am doing fucking finals- I am mentally not doing well hahha as you can tell with my rambling telling you everything on my mind!
Guess who has to work haha mee- fuck
Bella will come soon- like uhhhhhhhhhhhh around chapter 15 or around 20 because need build it up more, also Bella will be kinda replacing Aspen for a while. This is the Prologue of the series- when I start it off Bella will be "haunted" by a dream or in this case a nightmare named Aspen.
Aspen will not die but worse fate than death itself! Also, Meyer will regret what she will do to Aspen and Aspen will make her regret it later but that's in my next story!
Aspen teasingly whispers to Bella, Let's kill Edward? Actually- let's fight the Cullens then kill him. Bella just trying to do her math homework and act normal.
REMEMER THIS WILL NOT END HAPPY FOR ANYONE- BELLA WILL COME SAVE THE DAY OF SORTS!
BELLA THE HUMAN TO SAVE THE DAY SOMEWHAT UNTIL THE NEXT STORY AND SHE GONNA LOVE IT!
Poor cannon Bella would be scared of my own version of Bella
Empressivallydone on Chapter 3 Tue 28 Oct 2025 11:53PM UTC
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SoulyOH on Chapter 3 Wed 29 Oct 2025 02:06PM UTC
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Ilweien_Porphyrogenitus on Chapter 3 Fri 31 Oct 2025 11:44PM UTC
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SoulyOH on Chapter 3 Sat 01 Nov 2025 01:35AM UTC
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