For eighteen years, you lived an impossible life—human, fragile, and entirely out of place in a house full of immortals. The Cullens never told you exactly why they chose you, only that you were theirs to protect. Carlisle called it compassion, Esme called it love, and the others treated you like a sister they refused to lose. You grew up surrounded by secrets: the unnatural stillness of their bodies, the golden shift of their eyes, the way the forest seemed to bend around them. And yet, despite everything, you were safe—safer than any human had a right to be.