Disclaimer: I do NOT own anything or anyone you know from the Twilight series. That all belongs to Stephenie Meyer….lucky woman.
Author's Note: This is not cliché, I promise. If you've come across this before, please read from the beginning again. I have completely re-vamped this story (pun intended ) Please let me know what you think!
Chapter 1.
Another night, another cut, another bruise, another vampire dead. Well…dead..er. I felt a little bad, he'd been young, beautiful, and a real sweet talker too -- well up until he found out who I was and that I wasn't willing to donate my life to satisfy his. Who was I kidding? They were all beautiful and sweet talkers, that's what made them dangerous, that's why I had my job. Protector of the People. That was my sister's official slogan anyway. My mom's was something along the lines of: "Cleanser of Evil" or something to that effect; in her head she probably uses a phrase with a few more explicatives than she wanted to share with her children. Children… the momentary thought almost made me laugh out loud. I don't remember ever having a childhood.
I'd been a part of this crazy cult for as long as I could remember…training, fighting, hunting, training, fighting, hunting…it was a vicious cycle…the only upside was that I was still doing the hunting and hadn't yet been hunted.
"Shouldn't you be getting ready for school?" Audra's voice cut into my mental monologue, and I glanced up at her in annoyance. "Shit girl, you look like you've been through Hell. Don't let Mom see you in that condition…are you sure you won? He was only a few years old."
Ignoring the insults from my older, and far more direct sister, I concentrated on cleaning the few cuts on my shoulder and let my inner monologue give Audra a piece of my mind. It looked like it was going to be another day in Hell High following another sleepless night.
- - - - - - - - - -
Nessie
"Nessie, time to get up." Jake's voice slid into my dreams like honey. I sighed mentally, I didn't want to get up yet, getting up would mean I would have to face every teenager's worst nightmare: high school. It wouldn't be so bad if I had previous real school experience to rely on, but I didn't. Something about me changing too freaking fast deterred my family from putting me in school sooner. Now that I had supposedly stopped growing, or at least has slowed by a zillion percent, the whole fam. thought it would we swell if we all went together.
I tried not to squirm as Jake poked me in the side. If I looked like I was still sleeping I could lie here longer. I heard him sigh in defeat, "common Nessie." His voice portrayed the nervousness I felt and I contemplated giving up my sharade just to hug him. I really couldn't explain to anyone outside of my family what my relationship was with Jake…ok, so maybe I couldn't really even explain it to myself. He was just My Jake. End of story.
"Jake, you're giving me a headache." I felt Jake jump in surprise at the new voice in the room. Silly wolf, he should have heard him coming…I had heard him from all the way down the hall, he stomped around like an elk trying to get the attention of every female in a heard.
"Very funny Nessie." I smirked. "Get her up Jacob, she's going to be late for school." I listened to my father's footsteps fade from the room and silently waited for Jake's next tactic to attempt to get me out of bed.
"The vampires in this house need bells around their necks." Jake muttered. I couldn't help but smile, eyes still tightly shut.
"I heard that!" Edward's voice sounded from the floor below.
"Common Nessie, you don't want to be late for your first day of high school do you?" Jake sighed and poked and prodded me again.
I opened my eyes slowly, "Do I really have to go?"
Jake smiled in understanding, "yeah, ya really do, or at least that's what they tell me. It really wont be that bad. Honest. The school's big enough, no ones gonna possibly figure out that this messed up family is all…well, messed up." He grinned seeing the dark look I gave him. "Common, up. I'll see ya downstairs." Jake got off the bed and turned and left me to my thoughts.
It wasn't so much that I was nervous about being with my family and having to pretend that they weren't my parents and aunts and uncles. It was more being nervous about all of the other people. There would be hundreds of them. Of course, I reminded myself, this would give me plenty of opportunity to meet someone that I wasn't related to and make new friends. Human friends. That idea cheered me up greatly as I bounced out of bed.
Thirty minutes later, clad in a smart pair of blue jeans and a cute top, I descended the stairs into the living room where the rest of my family waited. Alice muttered quietly from the corner of the room where she lounged against Jasper's still form. "Let it go, she looks perfect." Edward said pointedly, giving his favorite sister a sidelong glance.
"You're dad's right, you look wonderful. How do you feel?" My mom asked, looking at me with a worried expression.
"I'm fine. Thanks, Jasper." I answered grinning at my uncle, who returned the grin, his powers of nerve control could be quite handy. "Common, let's just get this over with, we've been over everything hundreds of times. I can handle it ok? I didn't even have to take a breather when Alice and I went to the mall yesterday." I answered referring to Alice and my spending spree where the potent smell of human blood all crammed into one building didn't even phase me anymore. It was progress, progress that I was thrilled with. Grandpa Charlie and his friend Sue were one thing, but now I'd progressed to pushing herself to be around more humans, just like the rest of my family. I was determined not to let anything, not even the half-vampire, side of me, keep me from making real friends. Human friends.
"We know you'll be fine Renesmee, honey, but we just care about you." Esme put her arms around my shoulders and squeezed.
"I know you will do fine." Grandpa Carlisle said smiling at me, "Jacob," he called over his shoulder, "are you going with them or not?"
"Yeah, guess so." Jake sauntered out of the kitchen, licking the frosting off a cinnamon roll as he moved toward the group of vampires. "I call Bella's car."
"Uh, don't think so, we don't want to come across too strong just yet." Edward hedged. "I think a Ferrari on our first day would be a little much. We'll take mine and Rose's cars, it'll just make a slightly less strong first impression."
"Fine." Jake muttered. "Ready Nessie?" Without waiting for my response or consent, he grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door to the waiting cars.
Ten minutes and some erratic driving later we, arrived in the parking lot of Valley High School. "Remember," Edward said, turning to look at the group, "Bella, Jasper and Rose are with the last name Hale and siblings. Me, Ness, Alice and Emmett are going with Cullen. And Jake…you're just the tag-a-long." Jake growled something unintelligible under his breath that the vampires all ignored.
"Yeah, we know the charade, Edward, don't bore us with the details." Rosalie pointed out.
"Bella, Renesmee and Jacob are all new to this, remember?" Edward countered. Rosalie just rolled her eyes. "Here are our schedules and notes we have to have the teachers sign, Carlisle picked them up for us on Friday." He handed everyone two sheets of paper.
I tried to pay attention, but my focus was on the filling parking lot, watching all of the students grudgingly returning to school after the holiday weekend. I watched curiously as the normal human teenagers exited their cars and headed towards the main building, but not before 99 of them turned to give our entire Cullen clan a good gawking. I was beginning to feel apprehensive again about the whole school thing, was it really necessary? Honestly, I could learn everything I would ever want to know just by reading the books in Carlisle's library, sure I wanted to make friends, but was the means really worth the end? I saw my dad give me a sympathetic look, he must have been reading my thoughts again. "You have your first class alone, Ness, but after that, either Jake, your mom, myself, or Alice will be with you."
Jake looked down at me and smiled. "Common, let's go find your first class." He said, taking my hand again and starting to pull me away from the rest of the group. My mom bent and gave me a kiss on the cheek and a supportive smile, she looked almost as nervous as I felt. I smiled back remembering that this was her first time back to high school since graduating as a human.
- - - - - - - - -
As I ran through the parking lot and into the dreaded school building I kept hearing rumors about a bunch of new kids. Really good looking new kids, according to my best friend, Kate, as she filled me in at our lockers. "There are four boys and four girls I think. The boys are to DIE for, especially this auburn haired one, and the girls are just way over the top pretty. They're oddly pale too, but I think they're from up north or something…." Kate droned on as I concentrated on stuffing notebooks into my bag…beautiful and pale huh? I had felt a shimmer on the edge of my heightened senses as I'd ran in the building…but even now I dismissed it and let Kate drabble on…vampires in high school…the day that happened I'd turn myself into a bat. This lack of sleep thing was getting to be a little ridiculous I thought as I ran down the hall to make it to my first class on time.
Author's Note: Please review!! I beg you! I need them or I won't bother continuing!