A/N: Alright, hello my lovelies! I'm feeling brave and decided to upload this fic, are you proud of me? You should be. This is a big deal for me, y'know, letting other people read and critic my writing. But I suppose it is for everyone on this site, huh? Anyway, moving on, this is my first - and depending this stories reception, could be my last - upload and I should probably just take the time to say that;

- I, in no way, own the Twilight Saga, nor do I claim to. This is a work of fiction and I am making no form of profit from this. The only thing I own is my character Katherine. I'm simply borrowing Stephanie Meyer's characters for my own amusement. But I suppose that much is obvious, otherwise I wouldn't be uploading it to this website.

I should also warn you that there will probably be a fair bit of swearing in this story and also that I am British and attempting to write in an American setting, if there are any American readers out there who spot a dramatic flaw in my attempt then please feel free to point it out. It would actually be doing me a favour. But I will stop rambling now and let you actually read the story! Please review and let me know what you think whether it be good or bad!


PROLOGUE

: A Race You Can't Win :


My feet connected with the forest floor in a steady rhythm, the crunching of the fallen twigs kept pace with the drum of my racing heartbeat. I wasn't exactly sure how long I had been running for but judging by the burning in my lungs and my screaming muscles, I had been running for quite some time. I had no goal; I wasn't running towards anything in particular, I had no allocated time or distance. I was just simply running.

It was an extremely freeing experience, in my mind, to be able to just run with no purpose. It gave me a lot of time to think things through, take whatever pent up emotions I had been holding onto and just let them go. I didn't do it often, I liked to think of myself as a laid back person. It took a lot to genuinely upset me and even more for me to show it openly. I was definitely the 'suffer in silence' type, which I guess was something I inherited from my father, if nothing else.

This morning had started off like any other; I rolled out of bed and wandered down to find something to eat. The house had been empty, which was not an unusual occurrence, especially when your dad is chief of police. A job like that didn't exactly have strict office hours, a call could come in at any time. I had assumed that was what had happened, it was only when I spotted the note attached to the fridge that my morning took a turn for the worst. Bella, my sister, had decided that she wanted to move here a week early.

Now, don't get me wrong, I had nothing personal against my sister. She had done nothing wrong to me personally, not really. If I'm being honest, I barely knew her at all. She used to come and stay with us over the summer but she hasn't done that in years. The only form of communication I've had with her over the last decade was through birthday cards that were probably only signed with her name for the sake of not being rude. I think the last time I actually spoke to her was when she last came to visit, which was nearly eleven years ago.

It didn't bother me, I wasn't exactly missing out on much by not being close to her. The thing that annoyed me about her was how she could so easily abandon our father. Obviously, when she first decided that she didn't want to come visit us, I didn't quite realise how hard my dad took the news. I was only around five years old after all. But as I grew up, I started to notice it. It took a toll on him each time Renee had to call a few weeks before Bella was due to arrive and tell him that she had decided not to come. He tried to hide it, of course, but he missed her and it upset him a great deal knowing that Bella, his first-born daughter, didn't even want to come and spend a few weeks out of the year with him.

It used to make me feel like shit, I took it personally when he would react badly to Bella not coming to visit, even after years of the same treatment. In my twisted little mind, I thought it meant that I wasn't good enough for him, that he loved Bella more. I know now that I was just being stupid and incredibly self-centred about the whole thing but there is still a niggle in the back of my mind telling me that I was always going to come second-best when it came to her. And it annoyed me knowing that even though she disregarded him for so many years, he would still jump through hoops for her.

The fact that she had suddenly decided that she wanted to live here confused me to no end. Years of not even visiting but now she wants a permanent residency? Maybe she was feeling guilty or maybe she just didn't like Renee's new husband… Whatever her reason was, I didn't like it. I knew how it was going to play out; she would move in and within a few months, she'd decide that she wants to move back with Renee. It would crush my dad and he didn't deserve that, he didn't deserve it at all.

Quite simply, I didn't want her here to give her the chance.

Maybe I was jumping the gun, maybe she didn't have any ulterior motives and she just genuinely wanted to reconnect with her father and sister? Maybe this bitter taste in my mouth when I thought about her moving in was just jealousy? She was moving into my house, going to be using my bathroom, going to be spending time with my dad because she has suddenly decided to give a shit about him, it was going to mess up the entire flow of the household.

I scolded myself, that was such a petty thought. I didn't want to play the role of the hateful, jealousy-ridden younger sister. I was definitely not that kind of person and I was definitely not going to let Bella of all people turn me into that. At the end of the day, she was still my sister and I valued that about her, if nothing else. Growing up with just my dad, I had came to cherish what little family I had. And if that family was now going to properly include Bella, then so be it.

A sudden message alert in my back pocket brought me back to the present moment. I slowed my pace down to a slow walk before stopping altogether, my chest was heaving as I pulled out my phone and checked the caller I.D.

A smile spread across my face as I answered, "Hello, War Department. Would you like to fight?"

"You're hilarious, really. But where are you?" I could almost hear my best friend roll his eyes through the phone.

"I just went for a run, what's up?"

"You're not handling the Bella thing well then." He said pointedly and I cringed, sometime's I didn't like how well Jacob Black knew me. "Wanna talk about it?"

"I'll be fine," I brushed it off. "I'm just being stupid."

"It's really not good for you, bottling everything up the way you do." Jake hummed but didn't press the subject any further, he'd known me long enough to know that it wouldn't work. I didn't like to talk about things, in most cases doing that made me worse. "Well, I'm at your house with the truck and I was told by a certain someone's father that a certain someone would be home. But that certain someone appears to be rambling around the forest like a crazy person."

"Oh, shit." I raised my arm up to wipe the sweat from my brow. I had completely forgotten about Bella's homecoming present, and how I had managed to do that even though I spent the entire summer sweating over the old rust bucket was beyond me. "That had completely slipped my mind, shit."

"I gathered as much," he replied with a light chuckle. "she's running fine though. We didn't have to switch out the air hose after all. How long are you going to be? Charlie wants to take you two out for dinner or something once Bella see's the truck."

I groaned, I didn't feel like going out in the slightest. I didn't want to face Bella yet, especially not when I was this drained. I turned and looked around for any recognisable landmarks in the forest, trying to at least estimate how far from my house I actually was. "It's going to take me a while to get back, I'm pretty far into the trail, then I need to shower and get dressed and-"

"And make more excuses." He chimed in sarcastically.

"They are not excuses! I've been running all morning! I smell worse than that dead possum we found in your garage last summer."

Jake's hearty laugh drifted through the phone and it helped ease some of the tension in my body, "There is absolutely no way you smell worse than that."

"Well, I hope not. But I'm definitely pretty close." I said with a smile and an unlady like sniff of my armpit. "I'll see you soon, I'm heading back now."

"See you soon, Kit-Kat."

I hung up my cell and shoved it back into my pocket as I turned and began walking back in the general direction of my house with a huff. This should be interesting... I had every mind to just bail on the dinner and head up to the Rez with Jake, escape the extremely awkward situation that would no doubt come with having dinner with my estranged sister and man-of-very-few-words father. The conversation making would be left to me, I knew it would. My dad was not a talker, not at all. How he managed to interview witnesses and what not was beyond me.

I wasn't in the mood to make merry small-talk with Bella, hell, I hated making small-talk with anyone at the best of times. But I guess I have to suck it up and get on with things, I couldn't avoid Bella forever. So I should probably just get it over with, what is the worst that could happen? I checked my watch for the time and rolled my eyes, picking my pace up once again to a run.

Had I known then, the events and misfortunes that would follow the arrival of my sister, I would have definitely just continued to run in the opposite direction and get myself as far away as possible from it all. But I had no way of knowing and if I've learned anything from these past few months, it's that running from my problems was a race I was never going to win.


End note: I'm not entirely sure if I'm happy with the ending of this, kind of feels like it was rushed to me. But I'm usually my hardest critic, so I think I'm just going to leave it alone or else I'll be fixing it up forever and never manage to get any of the other chapters uploaded. :L Please review, I would really love to know what you think!