Bella POV

Running away was never the best of plans we had come up with, more like a Plan Z. We had burned through a lot of ideas, and this ended up being the last resort. I hated this feeling, feeling like i was left without a choice. I felt forced out of my home. But i knew when it was time to let go of something. It was practically our calling to know when to let go of something.

"You okay?" my sister asked, glancing at me in the passenger seat.

"Of course not," i said resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

"Stop being so moody, dont get mad at me because you wanted to leave, when i said i wanted to stay," she sounded tired now. I didn't blame her, we'd spent a lot of time arguing over the last little while. It had taken a whole month to convince her it was time to go, mostly because someone set fire to our house in the hopes of separating us, instead all they'd succeeded in doing was killing our mother. As if that night hadn't been bad enough. Talk about horrible timing.

"I dont want to die, and you shouldn't either," i said heatedly.

She was my baby sister, it was my job to protect her. I've known for a long time that it was time to leave, but i never really made the decision to do it until she ended up in the hospital. She had been so strong up until that night, up until she found out who her lover really was. It had ended horribly that night, she had so much hope that everything would work out, and even still wanted to remain in Phoenix after everything had fallen apart. The girl was resilient, i'll give her that, but it didn't make our life any less dangerous back home.

"I never said i wanted to die, but i'm not exactly pleased that were walking away with our tails between our legs," she retorted matter of factly.

"We didn't have a choice," i snapped.

"We always have a choice, you just chose wrong," she said coldly, and then turned up the volume of the radio before i could respond.

We had to use a GPS to find our way to our dad's house. A father we'd been surprised we even had. Of course we knew we had one out there, but we'd never met him.

Renee had loved him too much to watch him struggle with the burden that was embedded in our families DNA. Or destiny, either or. She never told him who she was, and once she realized who her daughters were, what they were, she took us ran, to protect Charlie. I hadn't even been two years old, and as i'm told, i was very much normal when i was child. Until Era had been born, hhich is when i had started to develop my own unusual habits. Were pretty sure Era had triggered me, which always made me wonder if i'd still be who i am today if she hadn't been born. Probably.

She was probably about five weeks pregnant with Era-lie when when she started having the dreams of her. She knew what those dreams meant. Renee had always had the strongest clarity when it came to seeing the future and not two weeks after the first vision, she was long gone.

Charlie hadn't even known she was pregnant with his second child. How unusual. Your wife disappears out of the blue, with your first born, has his second daughter, whom he had no knowledge of and when she dies, BAM! Your a parent all over again. I wondered if he thought we were dead or kidnapped or something. He hadn't been able to find her, though i wasn't sure if he had looked, the details of everything were sketchy because Renee got weird whenever we brought him up. Whatever we learned, was on our own.

It was pouring when we got out to the outer limits of the small town. "This is going to suck," i muttered, watching the rain pour down over the front of the window. It was pitch dark out, not that i'd be able to see past the rain anyways.

"You wanted to move in with Daddy," she shot at me.

"Where else were we going to go that was safe?" i retorted.

"This is the farthest thing from safe! He's a Normal Bella, he may be a sheriff of chief or captain or whatever, but's he's a Normal! He couldn't protect us if he wanted to," she said in disbelief.

"Well no one knows about him, it's called 'going underground' for a reason," i pointed out. We'd every file out there on us, once we knew where we were headed. I wanted some time to think, to plan. We needed a new plan. This was only temporary, but how long was a whole different concept. I wanted to stay out of trouble for as long as possible.

We saw the movement in the right corner, just barely and she slammed on the breaks, swerving slightly. I felt my body jostle and the seatbelt tighten painfully as we came to a halt. We had done a whole 180, we stared wide eyed as a huge soaking wet animal ran across the remaining highway and into the woods.

"Did you see that chick?" she asked still wide eyed turning to me.

"Did you that animal?" i retorted still staring out the window. A woman had gone flying across the road and straight into the woods. That huge animal looked so strange, it looked like it was chasing the woman. "What was that?"

"The off-spring of a bear and wolf mutated from mass amounts of steroids, of course," she said grinning amused. I gave her a look and she grinned even more, "you've never seen them before? It's a new species, i hear their even trying to catch the buggers to put them into captivity, but there quite fast."

"That's not funny! That thing was trying to kill that woman, we should do something!"

She gave me an incredulous look, "are you insane! I'm not following that thing! It's pouring, i'm hungry and it's the middle of the night! That thing will rip us to shreds. Besides, it looked like had a pretty good head start."

I rolled my eyes at her, and just looked back out the window as we continued to Charlie's.

He was up and waiting when we got there, somehow we'd managed to get lost, because the GPS was wrong. "I told you it was a stupid idea coming here, even the GPS doesn't want us to live here! It's a sign Bella," she said as the car came to a stop. The door opened, and i watched a middle aged man made his way towards the car.

"Let it go! Were here, get over it," i said throwing open the door roughly. The push was so hard, it snapped back and right as it went to crush my leg, a hand reached out and caught the top of it.

I stared up at the man, who i assumed was my father. I have to say, he looked nothing like me. But neither did Renee. "Thanks," i said awkwardly standing up.

I was almost soaked as i got out and Era got out a moment later. "I'm sorry to hear about your mother, and i'm sorry i couldn't make it to the funeral," he said tensely. He moved to hug me and then second guessed himself and held out his hand. I tried not to smirk at his fumbling, and just shook his hand. This was too weird.

"I got your rooms cleaned up," he said, and we all moved to the trunk and began pulling out the luggage.

"We only need the top three, we'll bring the rest in the morning," Era said, as rain dripped from her chin. She looked exhausted, she hadn't sleeping well since the fire, neither of us had. In the end she hadn't slept in two days.

Living in a house that someone had died in would do that to a person, especially someone you loved and couldn't save. What made it worse? The dreams, the visions. For us, living in a house where someone died meant re-living there death in their eyes, normally we only dreamt of it once, the more recent the more clear the image, but the older it was, the less we saw, just bits and pieces. But seeing as it had been our mother, the connection to it was both stronger and more painful. Era had even woken up with a burn on her leg a few days ago, which is when she deemed sleeping too risky.

Charlie led us unto the house, and i noted the pizza box on the kitchen table. The stairs creaked and the house seemed rather neglected to me. But living in a house with two other woman, meant a clean and well decorated house. When i was stressed out i cleaned, or if i was just bored or had too much on my mind. I didn't like cleaning with other people in the house, so it helped that Era was always training and Renee was always out doing who knows what.

He led us up a staircase and opened the first door on the left, setting the bad inside. The door was opposite of another one, which was ajar. That room was clearly Charlie's. "I wasn't sure who wanted which room, but you share a bathroom, so, fight to the death over the one with the walk in closet i guess."

He shifted under our amused shared look and then scratched the back of his head. "it's good to see you Bella," his voice broke and my face dropped, "i spent so much time wondering and praying you were okay, and you are. Even brought your sister in one piece. Era, i can't believe i've finally met you, i had no idea, and i'm just glad your both okay."

He wrapped his arms around Era first, in a tender hug and she looked utterly uncomfortable. I watched her face with a huge smirk, she hated those heart to heart moments. I wasn't all that emotional either, but i didn't wig out and feel as weird as she did. She smirked as Charlie released her and pulled me into a bone crushing hug.

I patted his back, suddenly acutely aware of my sister's triumphant look and glared at her. "I'm glad to finally meet you too," i said truthfully. I didn't know Charlie, he was a stranger to me. And because of our life, i'd never tried to contact him.

"Yes, well, anyways, you both should get some sleep, i've registed you at the high school," i felt Era stiffen next to me and gave her a sympathetic look.

"I dont go to schools, i-i'm home schooled," she said quickly.

"Well, maybe you can get into some sort of program there, for now can you tough it out?" he asked apologetically.

She glanced at me fearfully and i smiled at her in what i hoped was a comforting way, "dont worry, i'll keep an eye on things. I'll be there too."

"I guess," she said, clearly unhappy and i gave Charlie a small smile. I took her hand and led her into the first room, shutting it behind us. I was pleased to note the lock on the door and turned the little lever.

"Which room do you want?" i asked her, looking around the dreadfully plain room. Yeah, we definitely needed to do some shopping. I mean, the walls were brown for christ sakes.

"Dont care, can we just go to bed?" she asked dropping the bag on her shoulder.

"Do you want to move the bed?" i asked her thoughtfully. She always slept better close to a window, and it was as far from the window as it could get.

"Yeah," she said nodding. We moved to the opposite sides and lifted it up together. We were stronger then Normal's, but we still needed help when we were exhausted. We set it under the window and then set about crawling into it together. Neither of us wanted to be alone tonight, we knew each other well enough to not even have to verbalize it. We usually never needed to say anything when something was needed.

"I miss home, and mom," i said quietly, listening to the rain as it pounded against the house. It was making me sad, as if leaving sunny, warm Phoenix wasn't bad enough. Neither of us wanted a big fat neon sign that said 'your not in kansas anymore', and that's exactly what the rain was.

"Me too," she said after a thoughtful moment. Very quietly, almost afraid she said, "Bella, we dont know what were doing. Renee did, and we dont. How are we going to live when neither of us was finished training?"

"We'll figure it out, it's not the first time we haven't had her around to help us. We'll be okay Era, i promise."

She was silent for a long time, and as i started to drift off, the words, "you shouldn't make promises you dont know if you can keep," cut through the haze.

I turned over to face her and gave her a small smile, she was already looking over at me. Confidence setting in my eyes, i whispered in a determined, set in stone voice, "then i guess it's a good thing i didn't."