Authors Note: Hope you like it.
Disclaimer: Don't Own
Beginnings
"For every beginning there is an ending, with every ending there is a new beginning"
I lay in my bed but I wasn't asleep. I couldn't. (Literally) Rolling over I cracked my eyes open to squint at my alarm clock. My vision was real good, almost too good. The numbers on my clock were blinking an annoyingly bright neon red color. It was eleven forty three and I was bored out of my mind. I jumped out of bed and stood in one swift motion to head into the bathroom to shower. The scalding water that would have burnt a normal human being felt wonderful flowing down my ice-cold skin. I tried to think, but I could never remember it all. The only thing I know for fact is that both my biological parents were dead. Frustrated I spun around and slammed the water nozel back into the off position and jumped out of the shower only to come face to face with my reflection. Looking in the mirror was hell for me. Other people normal or not saw a gorgeous teenage girl. Dark almost pitch black hair, turquoise colored eyes and pale skin. They would see a girl with long legs, nice curves, and the perfect smile. All I saw was a pathetic young girl. She had crazy eyes, erratic breathing. She was looking rather green and kept glancing around, looking for something. She was lost and alone and she knew it too. This was my last memory of myself. Then, id had mahogany colored hair that hung in loose curls down past my shoulders, brown eyes, and a stick figure. I was a real plain Jane. I punched the mirror and heard it shatter into a million pieces around me. Not feeling the pain because there was no pain feel, my skin was like granite. I growled at the spot where the mirror has once been, but it came out as more of a strangled snarl of sadness. I snatched a towel out of the rack by the door where Marie always put my clean towels. No, Marie was not a maid. She was my mother. Well, my second mother. She married Jackson just before I was "born." I try to show them as much respect as I can; I am ETERNALLY grateful that he found me otherwise I would have been dead right now…well as dead as I could be considering the circumstances. Thinking of my surrogate parents calmed me. It helped me remember that I was no longer on my own. I had sweet compassionate parents and a crazy cool adoptive brother. I also have an adoptive sister, though I couldn't tell you much about her, she was relatively new to our family. I walked into my closet and pulled out a quarter sleeved dark blue t-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans. I straightened my newly cut hair. I now had side swept bangs and layers, but it still hung down to at least my lower back. I put on black eyeliner to make my eyes "pop" and clear lip gloss. On my way out I rummaged through my shoe basket for my plain dark blue ballet flats. I grabbed my gray zippered hoodie off the hook behind the door, snatched up my phone, a silver black berry my purple ipod an some money from my bedside table, switched off my light and closed my door. Coming down the stairs I called out in a voice slightly quieter than speaking,
"I'm going out, mom! Dad can I use the Lexus?"
"Have fun sweety; your father says go ahead and take it!" She replies. I walked into the garage, towards our black Lexus and found Kev waiting in the passenger seat. Kevin has pitch black hair and he used to have green eyes, now there the golden color we vegetarians usual attain. He was two years older than me when he changed, so he's still older than me by two years. We were all turned and we haven't changed at all since we were. Changed into vampires. Yep! You heard right. Vamps! Everything about us is designed to draw in our prey, the humans. Were devastatingly beautiful, our voices sound musical, our breath is on permanent mint, and we smell amazing. In addition to the characteristics that the humans can pick out about us, we have awesome hearing, sight, smell, and speed. The speeds we can reach are totally exhilarating. But there is always a flip side; a quarter, heads and tales; a court case, defendant and accuser. In this case, we have all these awesome character traits, but we also crave blood. Human blood. My family and I have learned to harness our bloodlust, so our control is near perfect around humans. Mine is pretty easy to control the smell of human blood for me is a total turn off, I have no idea why but animal blood just smells so much better. Which is good for me, it quenches my thirst almost completely but it's not so great for the rest of my family who crave human blood like humans crave pineapple pizza. The animal blood just doesn't do it for them; they always have a burn in the back of their throats that they have to deal with. The fact that we drink animal blood keeps our eye color from becoming the vivid crimson your average vampire obtains. Instead our eyes become a honey soft golden color. Rare vampires, vegetarian or otherwise, have special abilities, we'll say. I'm a hypnotist, basically. I can make you do what ever I want you to, even if you don't want to. I also have "a subtle seductivity" as Jackson would say; I can persuade you to do what I want if I didn't want to force you. I do it all the time, though most times I don't even realize it. After my change my eyes turned this weird turquoise color. Their not blue, but their not green either, you know? Jackson insists it's because of my ability, but I think it's just because I am a freak. My name is Isabella Marie Swan. Bella, which is a nickname I prefer, for short. I know, I know, who would name their kid beautiful swan? But I think my mother was a little eccentric, she must have been. I'm seventeen and the youngest in my little family. Kevin, my brother is nineteen and his girlfriend, my adoptive sister is my oldest sibling at twenty and both mom and dad are twenty-seven. I don't really talk to Amanda. She's kind of jealous that I will always have a strongest bond with Kevin because i'm the one that found him and helped him through his newborn years.
"What are you doing?" I asked him, my expression puzzled.
"I'm going with you. I don't like all those nasty hormonal teenage boys looking at my sister like a peace of meat" Did I mention that he's over protective. Just a tad.
"Oh, Jesus, Kevin, its not like I cant handle myself." I sighed exasperated. He knew that so why he decided he would go with me everywhere I try to go alone, I don't know.
"I know… but I don't like guys staring at my little sister like they'd like to just…ugh" he said quietly while looking at his pale hands. I reached over and intertwined my slender fingers with his. My brother. My over protective, sweet, sentimental brother. I loved him and there weren't many chances I got to tell him that, so I did now.
"I love you, bro, and-," I laughed out loud; it sounded like tinkling bells, even to my ears.
"Besides what if I like the way they look at me? Reducing the human to race to slobbering dogs? Now that's my kind of game?" I committed his musical laughter to memory. I'd heard Amanda trying to talk him into going with her to visit a fellow "vegetarian" coven. We'd met a few of our kind, so I didn't think he needed to see them so bad, but it sounded like she was doing a very good job of convincing he did. I could just use my power on him of course, but I wanted him to choose to stay on his own… or to go, I thought sadly. On that sad note I started the Lexus. Hearing the engine purr relaxed me. I had replaced the old engine for a newer faster model. That was just one on my many useless talents. As we pulled out of the three car garage and down the driveway, Kevin and I lapsed into a comfortable silence. The whole way to the mall, which was not that long considering us Vamps crave adrenaline just as much as they crave blood. I thought about Amanda. She really didn't tell us much about herself; we didn't require it of our family members. We figured "it don't matter no ways" Jackson was southern gent but he's broken his accent, since our first years together and I couldn't understand half of what he was saying. All we know for sure about Amanda is that she used to be with another vegetarian coven. She was beautiful; Long blonde hair, perfect figure, perfect smile, with an impeccable style. She was a statuesque beauty except for her eyes. Her eyes were never and will never be the perfect shade of blue to match the rest of her. She was a touch vain and self centered but it was something she was trying to fix, I could tell. I was neutral to her, but what Kevin saw in her as a mate was beyond me. Other than looks, which is something that we would never judge on, she didn't have much. Her power was for telekinesis, like me. Kev says when he saw her, the earth just slide into place and everything seemed to be just right. That he'd found his one and you know what I said? I said that's a pile of bull shit! His reply was much more graphic. Something along the lines of shut my smart butt up and be happy for him. That I'll know what the fridge he means when it happens to me. So I did. I shut my smart butt up and was happy for him because he's my brother and he was happy and he wanted me to be happy. They've been together since she came, at least seventeen months ago. Obviously since I don't know her I don't have a valid reason to hate her, but if she ever hurt my brother, I would rip her into bite sized pieces and burn her with gasoline. She'd die a very painful death but that probably wouldn't happen. The car slide smoothly into the parking spot and I killed the engine. Reaching into the backseat, I retrieved the black messenger bag that housed my macbook and shoved my money and iPod into the front skull pocket and made sure to pop the trunk. I needed to get my skateboard out before Kev left with the car to get my Cadillac out of the shop. It was raining hard when I looked through the windshield, as it always was where we lived. We had to move to are cold and wet places. Places the sun don't shine, I thought sarcastically. We can't be in the sun and no it's not because we'll burn, it's because our skin shines like diamonds. Freaking diamonds, dude!!! Jumping out of the car, I put my hoodie up over my head, my messenger bag on my shoulder and slammed my door shut. I ran around to the trunk and grabbed my skateboard. Although I had enough money to buy a new one, I liked my old beat up, scuffed up, about to break in half, element. I'd decorated it with stickers from my favorite bands and stuff; I mean come on it's got sentimental value. I heard Kevs door open and then slam. Whimp! He always waited until I had already gotten out and got what I needed before he got out, so he wouldn't get as wet. Once we got inside, I shook my hood off and ran my fingers through my hair, basically broadcasting my presence to any vamps in the mall, though I doubted there were any. Even though human senses were dull, my scent was more potent even from extreme distances. It was part of my ability, even though it's almost gotten me killed on more occasions than I've got fingers and toes. I proceeded to walk through the mall, not noticing all the envious stares from the girls and the lustful from the guys, until Kevin reached out and took my hand, entwining out fingers. He was staking his claim. Even though Kev and I never were and never will be anything more than brother and sister, he didn't want guys to ask me out. I didn't either and we found that avoiding guys was easier if they thought we were together. He walked me all the way to the food court and I was surprised his phone hadn't rang yet. And then it rang. It was a custom made green chocolate, his favorite color. It rang with an all too familiar tone. It was Amanda saying "Hey, babe, it's Panda. Pick up the phone!" Her happy go lucky voice grated along every nerve ending in my body. And wasn't it just the biggest coincidence that she always calls with and absurd excuse to get him to come home. She was restricting his time with me but he was so in love with her that he didn't notice. It wasn't that she was suspicious, it was just that even as beautiful as she was, she was still afraid that Kevin would leave her for someone "better" In my book, the word better has multiple definitions. We were drifting apart and she was the cause. He gave me a pleading look and I turned away, not wanting him to see the pain I couldn't keep out of my eyes. I nodded almost imperceptibly. He was killing me slowly from the inside out and he; the one person that knew me the best, couldn't see it and that ripped me up. He took it off speaker phone half-way through the call so I knew he was leaving. I heard the phone turn off and I made a tremendous effort to hide my feelings and turned back to him.
"See you at home, Kev. Love you." It took major effort to keep my voice from wavering. I stood up and so did he. He came around the table we had sat down at when Amanda called, and put his arms around me, pulling me tight to his chest. He held me for a second longer and then pulled away slightly, kissing me on the forehead before pulling back completely and somehow in that moment, I knew. This would be the last time my overprotective big brother would be even close to as protective as he had been. It wasn't intentional I knew that but, it would happen and the pain that was caused would hurt. "Don't forget about my car!" I forced a smile. The worst feeling in the world was knowing that he couldn't tell the difference between my smiles anymore, he was so caught up in being with Amanda. He was becoming like everyone in this whole mall. A stranger. "I won't! I text you where I parked it!" he yelled back. I just nodded. I bent down to grab my macbook out of my messenger bag and that's when I smelled it. A vampire. I didn't know how many probably three and I didn't know what they wanted or who they were, but I knew one thing. I knew they wanted to talk to me.