Chapter One
Jessica Stanley was finally leaving Forks.
Thank God.
She'd spent far too long in this miserable, rain-soaked town, playing the role of vapid teenage girl, pretending not to notice the vampires that had moved in, pretending not to see the wolves running through the forests.
She was done.
Her car hummed along the empty road, the town limits sign growing closer with each passing second. Freedom. Finally.
Her phone rang.
Jessica glanced at the screen. Unknown number—probably her contact with the new paperwork. New identity, new life, new everything. She'd be someone else by tomorrow. Someone who'd never heard of Forks, Washington, or Bella Swan's ridiculous supernatural drama.
She reached for the phone.
It slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor.
"Dammit," Jessica muttered, unbuckling her seatbelt. She knew it was stupid—kids, don't try this at home—but she was in a hurry. Her body was already starting to glow, the energy building up inside her after holding it back for weeks during the whole Volturi mess. She needed to reach her bunker before it got worse.
Her fingers closed around the phone.
She looked up.
And saw the massive wolf standing in the middle of the road.
Time slowed.
Jessica's mind registered details with the clarity of someone who'd lived far too long: young wolf, smaller than the others, it had to be Seth Clearwater, eyes wide with surprise.
She slammed on the breaks, but it was too late.
The impact sent her through the windshield in a shower of glass.
---
My name is Jessica Stanley, but I was not always.
Not Jessica. Not really. Jessica Stanley is just the latest in a long line of identities I've worn like ill-fitting clothes.
My first name was Eve.
Yes, THAT Eve. but I do like the name Jessica I was even going to use it for the next identity.
And before you start with that whole Adam and Eve and the stupid apple crap, let me set the record straight: Adam picked the apple. Adam took the first bite. Then Adam, being the coward he was, tricked ME into taking a bite. And when God showed up asking questions, what did Adam do? He lied. Made up some ridiculous story about me being seduced by a snake—aka the devil, because apparently, I'm that gullible.
It caused friction between Father and Son. God's newest son. Oh, and his newest daughter too, I guess, though Adam made me sound like I was just baggage. An afterthought. A rib.
Then to make matters worse, Adam actually talked poor Samael into rebelling. The most beautiful angel in Heaven, corrupted by my idiot husband's manipulations. And who did Adam blame? Me. Said I was trying to seduce God's most beautiful angel.
Of course, God knew the truth. He always knows the truth. But He gave Adam yet another punishment anyway—because apparently cursing his "wimping girl" *cough* wife with the pain of having a period every month wasn't enough. Now we were cast out of the Garden of Eden.
And because I was created FOR Adam, and because God made me to be his companion, I got the boot too. Even though I was totally innocent. That jerk blamed me for everything.
So, I did what I always do: rolled up my leaves and got to work.
We lived with the primate version of humans the ones God made after us, the ones who weren't immortal. Over the years, Adam and I had three sons. They were the only reason I stayed with that idiot for so many centuries after our fall.
After the third child, I refused to let that man touch me ever again.
He was such a slob and a bastard, I refused to allow myself to be his object to use as he pleased I eventually I was thrown out of the village. The only ones who visited me were my youngest and Abel. Cain took too much after his father—prideful, entitled, always blaming someone else.
They mated with the primitives, and eventually—BAM—humans. Come one, come all, see the missing link: my ruin of an ex-husband who could take a piece of gold and somehow find a way to turn it into a steaming hot pile of crap while blaming me for it. And my murderous son, ladies and gentlemen.
My sons Cain and Abel fought over a girl. Of all things, a girl. During the fight, Cain ended up killing both his brother AND his father somehow. I still don't know how Adam managed to get himself killed in a fight between two young men, but he did.
So once again, me and my last son were punished for something someone else did.
We were turned into blood-sucking monsters.
But of course, because I had the "always have a period" curse, I stayed mostly the same. Except I lost my ethereal glow. I still bled gold instead of red like the new humans. My glow only comes back every ten years or so, lasts about a week.
I found that if I hide away from the sun, I can hold off on acting like Tinkerbell's only slightly larger, older sister.
My son Seth the one who survived, the one who became the progenitor of the rock-hard, sparkly vampires—went his own way. We talk more now that he found a way to live with himself. The strange thing is Seth is the one who had bitten Carlisle. Carlisle later is the one who gave Seth the idea to feed on animals. Seth my little sweet boy.
I'm different from my son and his children. They're stone and diamond, cold and hard, sparkling in the sunlight like disco balls. I'm still flesh. Warm. Alive, technically. Just... cursed. Stronger than them. Faster. Harder to kill, impossible to kill in my case believe me I tried.
And so, so tired.
I've been running for thousands of years. New name, new face, new life every few years. This time I was Jessica Stanley, vapid high school student in Forks, Washington. Fooling mind reading Vampires is easy you just flood their brain with something that will bother them and they practically run from you from then on. Over 20,000 years never once have I been caught like this before.
And I was finally leaving.
Of course, nothing is ever that simple.
---
Jessica—Eve—flew over the stunned young wolf in a graceful arc, her body tumbling through the air.
She had just enough time to think: *Of course it's Seth Clearwater in his wolf form.*
Time stretched. She saw everything: the Cullens' running towards the injured wolf, Jacob Black in human form running forward, Renesmee on his back, another wolf emerges from the tree line.
Then her face hit the pavement.
Hard.
Seventy miles per hour to zero in an instant.
Her face left a dent in the road.
For a moment, she just lay there, tasting asphalt and gold blood. Her nose was definitely broken. Probably her cheekbone too. Maybe her jaw.
She felt the familiar warmth spread through her skull as the damage healed, accompanied by a faint golden glow that seeped through her skin.
Someone cleared their throat behind her.
Eve pushed herself to her feet slowly, brushing glass and debris from her torn clothes. Gold blood stained her shirt, her jeans, dripped from her chin onto the pavement.
She turned around.
There they stood: the entire Cullen clan.
Carlisle in front, his expression carefully neutral. Esme beside him, concern in her eyes. Edward, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett—all of them frozen, staring at her with varying degrees of shock and suspicion.
Jacob Black stood in human form, wearing cut-off shorts, Renesmee still perched on his back. The little half-breed was staring at Eve with those too-knowing eyes.
Behind them, Seth Clearwater was shifting back to human form, looking dazed but unharmed. Another wolf—Leah, probably—stood protectively beside him.
Eve met their stares, acutely aware of the gold blood on her face, the torn clothes, the faint glow still emanating from her healing injuries.
She said the first thing that came to mind:
"God dammit."
Carlisle took a step forward, his eyes fixed on the gold blood dripping from her chin.
"Jessica," he said carefully. "What are you?"
Eve looked down at herself. At her wrecked car smoking in the ditch. At all her belongings—her carefully packed bags, her documents, her entire escape plan—scattered across the road.
She looked back up at the vampires and werewolves surrounding her.
And she sighed.
"That," she said tiredly, "is a very long story."