Dusk - A Twilight Reimagining

3 - A Witch's Favor

Bella Swan was properly pissed off. She hovered by the entrance of the lunch hall with her brown bag clenched tight in her fist, her gaze swimming through the human tide to find a place to sit.

No spots. Sharp teeth nipped at the back of Bella's mind as her annoyance poked holes in her meticulously crafted dam. So much space across the entire hall, and yet they decided only to place tables for half the school's population. She imagined the district's board gathered in a seance, predicting the time of her arrival and removing all seating just to spite her.

It could've happened.

Maybe.

Bella gnawed at her cheek as she promptly fled the lunch hall. She'd rather starve than sit with her shoulders pressed up against people she didn't know. Ruminating in her anger, she stalked the narrow hallways to find a staircase to sit at—there was only one at this school, located by the science wing. Bella passed small groups of students who claimed vacant corners as their sacred lunch territory, giving her wary glances as if she posed a threat to their peace. 

They weren't entirely wrong. She posed no threat to their peace; her anger was directed at someone else entirely. A boy who was tall, lean, had the world's reddest eyes, and the world's most irritating personality, oh, and the boy who happened to be laying on the only damn staircase in the school. Bella gnashed her teeth when she spotted him with his arms thrown over his head, taking up the entire damn walkway.

Edward Cullen.

Renée Dwyer, Bella's mother, always told her she had a talent for making enemies. She hated proving her right. But just two weeks in and she already had a viscerally hated adversary. 

On her first day, she waltzed into biology and sat down where the teacher instructed her to, beside Edward Cullen. Not only did he almost hurl, he opened the window and spent the rest of class sticking his nose out of it. Bella had never before felt humiliation burn so red on her face. Since then he's had a cactus up his ass nearly all the time around her. From moving his chair as far away from her as possible, to plugging his nose with earplugs, he made sure to make every day a hell filled with her peers' eyes. 

But the 6th day was the real kicker. Bella slept particularly well that night—who knew rain could be so soothing—and was on her A-game the entire lesson. Everything was going well for once, until after asking another question to the teacher, Edward lifted his head from the table. With a swift swivel of his head, his sharp red gaze landed right on Bella. Despite her surprise, a soft whisper stole her breath away as her mind connected those eyes to her dream.

"Is there anything you actually know? Or is it that you can't shut up?" he said, with venom laced in every word.

Which was exactly why Bella turned around when she saw him on the stairs. She wanted nothing to do with him; hell she might as well crash that hallway group's peace and sit uncomfortably close to them. 

She was the bigger person. 

She was the better person.

Do not interact. Just walk away. Be the better-

"Oh, it's you again. Why are you chronically not where you're supposed to be?"

Her plans went right out the window. 

"What is your problem, Cullen? Seriously, do you have a giant branch of thorned roses up your ass or something!?" Bella snapped, spinning around on her heels to face him. Her green eyes bubbled like poison and like a man blinded by his ego, his only reaction was the taunting arch of his thick brows. 

With feline grace, he rose from the stairs and cracked his neck with two gentle twists. Edward already towered above Bella on an equal playing field, but especially now. Rare sunlight slipped through the large window behind him, bathing him in a halo of light that bounced off all his dark clothing. His dark jacket covered nearly all of his neck and arms, and, as crazy as her assumption felt, Bella wondered if he purposefully tried to cover every inch of his skin. His amber hair glistened like the gem it resembled, making his hair appear more like molten copper.