Twilight and Dawn

Chapter Four

Rhea and Bella stared at each other.

Rhea looked at the snow covering the ground, she didn’t know when it started snowing. When they had arrived for the day it had been raining, now the snow was coming down quickly.

Rhea was looking around to make sure that Khinoe wasn’t coming back for revenge after losing the Giant War, but then it was Piper who kicked her butt during the war.

“It’s snowing,” Mike said.

Bella and Rhea looked at him, as if they couldn’t understand why he had stated the obvious. They had been in Forks for a week now, she was just glad that fewer people were paying attention to them.

Bella had made a small group of friends.

Rhea was sure that they only spoke to her for Bella’s sake, they never talked to her if Bella wasn’t near her.

She said nothing either.

“Yuck,” Bella said pulling her books closer to her chest, glaring at the ground.

Rhea coughed into her hand.

“Bella, it’s not that bad,” Rhea said.

“You don’t like snow?” Mike asked.

He looked at Bella like a puppy that their owner had kicked, wide baby blue eyes.

Rhea rolled her eyes.

It was sad, since Bella had showed no interest in him and Rhea didn’t know if Mike was going to accept that willing, something else she would monitor.

“Bella just doesn’t like the cold,” Rhea said.

Snickering when a snowball hit him in the back of the head, Eric was walking away and Mike laughed as he made his own snowball to chase after him.

Eric hadn’t thrown it, the snowball hadn’t been from that direction. It didn’t help that she could never keep up with Mike.

One moment he was flirting with Bella, then he would look at Rhea like he wouldn’t mind that she was an option, for dating.

She doubted that. Rhea had no interest in him.

“Come on Bells, let’s get you to the cafeteria before you lose you human meat shield and have to rely on your books alone,” Rhea said walking away.

Bella caught up with her keeping her books covering her face.

Rhea laughed at her.

“Once people throw icy stuff I’m inside,” Bella said watching other teenagers throw snow at each other in the parking lot.

They looked like they were having fun.

Rhea smiled as she made sure to carefully freeze some water from the air into snow.

“And I’m sure no one wants to take you to the hospital with a cracked skull, the school would be thankful,” Rhea said, “getting to the hospital is going to be an pain in this weather.”

“We’ll get there,” Bella promised.

Rhea nodded sitting down, pulling out her lunch.

Bella sitting down next to her.

“Looks like Edward’s finally back,” Rhea said, spotting the Cullen’s and Hale’s table.

Waving at Alice when she waved at them.

“After being absent for a week,” Rhea said.

“Maybe he was waiting for your anger to settle down, you can be scary,” Bella said.

“Real scary,” Rhea said.

“It’s always the short ones,” Bella said, “I don’t feel so well.”

“Eat Bells, you’ll feel worse if you don’t. Trust me.”

“I trust you.”

Rhea smiled before shacking her head, watching Bella looked down before glancing at Alice’s table. Bella looked down before looking down, her cheeks were slowly going red.

Rhea glanced at her as she was drinking water, before looking at Edward.

Edward looked at her with a raised eyebrow, before going back to talking to his siblings.

“Rhea, he’s looking at us,” Bella said.

Rhea nodded.

“Is he still looking?”

“Nope,” Rhea said looking at the table, “never mind, he’s looking now.”

“Does he look mad?” Bella asked.

“You’re asking me this? Really Bells.”

“Why is he looking.”

“Maybe because we’re looking at him.”

“Why won’t he stop?”

“He might stop the moment we do,” Rhea said giggling into her hand.

Snorting as something cold hit her in the back of her head.

“Rhea, you okay?” Bella asked.

“Just some snow,” Rhea said brushing the snow from her hair before it could melt into her clothing, “wonder what changed Edward’s mind about going to school.”

“Who cared about his reasons? Jessica might think he’s the prettiest male in the school, but looks aren’t everything you know,” Bella said.

Rhea finished getting the snow out of her hair.

“Great, then you’ll stop calling yourself plain now? Little Miss I was Born Thirty and Get More Middle-Aged by the year,” Rhea said.

“You suck,” Bella said taking another sneak peek at the Cullen table.

Rhea sighed, she looked at the table as well.

Alice seemed to tell Edward something, but she couldn’t read lips. That’s not where her skill laid, hers lead in the art of stabbing thing and fighting.

“And you know it,” Rhea said tapping Bella’s upper arm, “we have biology next, I think we’re looking at onions, something I think we’ve already did back at Phoenix.”

“Rhea, there’s snow,” Bella said.

“Let people have their fun,” Rhea said.

“Rhea, Rhea, snowball fight.”

“I’ll be your meat shield again.”

“Good evening,” a bell-like voice said behind them.

Bella and Rhea looked up.

Edward was standing behind them.

“I’m Edward Cullen, I didn’t introduce myself last week, I came down with an illness,” he said.

Rhea and Bella just looked at each other before looking at him.

She knew there was something different about him from the last time she had seen him.

“Well then, we’re glad you’re feeling and less murderous,” Rhea said.

“You must be Rhea Jackson,” Edward said using his hand to remove the snow from his hair, “and Bella Swan, Alice told me about you two.”

He was still looking at him like they were something that he couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

“You might as well come with us then, mister grumpy pants,” Rhea said putting her lunch box back into her schoolbag.

Bella packed away her own things, before standing up and staring at Edward.

“Since we’re in the same class, same room and same building,” Rhea said.

“Grumpy pants?” Edward asked walking towards their next class.

The snow slowly melted, which Rhea had a feeling was going to be a problem later.

“Would you prefer Murder Duck?” Rhea asked.

“No,” Edward replied.

“Then Grumpy pants it is,” Rhea said.

“Rhea, what is it with you and ducks?” Bella asked putting her arm through her elbow.

Something had done with them more than once, it would seem that Bella had picked up the habit.

“I swear you act like one of them murdered a close friend or family member.”

“Doubt it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one did that just that Bells, I’ve told you this before. Ducks are massive d***s,” Rhea said.

Edward stared at her.

There had to be a reason he was standing next to her and not Bella, most people preferred her sister.

“So are octopuses,” Rhea added, “Gold fish are smarter than peopel give them credit for.”

“Sometimes you talk like you can understand them, or is animal body lanauage easier than humans?” Bella asked.

“Better that than trying to figure out if Mr Banner is Bruce Banner from the Marvel movies,” Rhea said.

She could hear people whispering as they walked into the classroom. Rhea didn’t think it was that shocking that Edward walked with them to class.

Like he said, they were going in the same direction anyway.

“Go sit down, Bells, after this you have a date with some dodge balls,” Rhea said.

“And you get to do homework in the library,” Bella said.

“Would you rather be sick?”

“No thank you.”

Rhea nodded taking her seat.

Edward hadn’t said a thing.

“Now class we’ll be looking at onion roots and identifying them,” Mr Banner said walking into the classroom, putting slides on the edge of each of their tables, “you can’t use your books. I know some of you will asks.”

“How much time will have have?” Mike asked.

“Unit the end of the class,” Mr Banner answered walking back to the front of them room, sitting down before taking out a stack of homework, “now get started.”

“Ladies first,” Edward said.

Rhea put the first slide in.

“You might regret that choice,” she said looking at the slide.

She had seen this before, she was smarter than some people thought, Annabeth. Nico, Will and Jake, along with Hazel, Piper and Jason... most of Camp Jupiter have scolded her for acting like an i***t.

Rhea just felt safer when people thought she was an airhead, never to be more than a pretty face. Smelly Gabe had a habit of attacking her any time she showed any signs of intelligence and at school she was usually accused of cheating.

“Looks like Prophase,” Rhea said, “but I think you should check it, just in case.”

“Prophase,” Edward said.

Rhea put the second slide in, while he wrote their answer down. A casual glance at his handwriting made her pause, it looked like it belonged in the 19th or 20th century.

A sign of someone getting a private school education, the type of handwriting her Mum would use when she would send nice Birthday or Christmas cards.

“Pretty,” Rhea said.

“Anaphase,” Edward said sliding the microscope over.

Rhea blinked before looking at it, “Anaphase.”

Edward wrote it down while she changed the slides.

“Looks like Interphase,” she said, sliding it over to Edward.

“Interphase,” Edward said.

It continued like this until they finished. When they were done, Rhea looked at Bella’s ground and smiled when she saw that they were done.

Angelia and Bella were smart, it was some of the others in the class that she knew would struggle.

Some more than others.

“So, Edward,” Mr Banner said looking at their piece of paper.

Rhea was tempted to write them in Ancient Greek, modern Greek worked as well.

“Don’t you think Rhea should have time to look at the microscope,” Mr Banner said.

Rhea took the paper, writing Profasi under Prophase.

“She identified three of th five Mr Banner,” Edward said, writing Anafasi under Anaphase.

“Edward has the better handwriting,” Rhea said.

Mr Banner looked at her with clear doubt.

“I’ve done this before,” she said.

“My bad Miss Jackson, you’re also a foster child,” Mr Banner said.

Almost as if he just remembered, like it wasn’t the reason he offered her turoring classes, more than once, to help her catch up on anything she might have missed moving from school to school.

Like she had been in the foster system her entire life.

He must have looked at her transfer file.

“No, actually, Bella and I had been placed in the advanced program in Phoenix,” Rhea said.

“Well then, it’s good that you two are lab partners then,” Mr Banner said walking away.

She could hear him mutter, ‘so others have a chance to leanring’ under his breath.

“You were in the system?” Edward asked.

“Not for long, I was in once placement before Renee and Phil adopted me,” Rhea said, “no way near as long as other people. Not like your siblings.”

“Jasper and Rosealie.”

“Alice told me.”

“That she would.”

“Mr Banner really doesn’t like you,” Rhea said.

She had a feeling that he didn’t want to talk about his siblings; part of the foster system or not.

“Did you break into his car of something? Someone at one of my shcools did that,” Rhea said, “but that lead the police into finding out that he was a pedo and the kid was one of his victims.”

“Wait, what?” Edward asked.

“Happened when I was ten,” Rhea said, “well, class is over and I’m heading to the library after dropping Bells off at Gym class.”

“Ready to go,” Bella said, pausing to look at Edward.

Edward stared at her.

“Your eyes are like Rhea’s,” she said, “always changing colours.”

Bella was as blunt as a brick breaking through a window.