1. THE BEGINNING OF THE END

It had been nearly seven years since we'd last heard anything from the Volturi. All those years ago they had come with the intentions of killing me because I am an unthinkable creation of what danger they were not sure; I am half human and half vampire. Until Alice went looking they had believed that I was the only one of my kind, but it was thanks to another like me, Nahuel, that I believe I was saved; and I think is was also of partial thanks to Marcus, one of the leaders of the Volturi, who did not believe that I was of any threat to anyone.

You may be wondering how such a creature as myself can come about existing; this would be thanks to my mother, Bella, and my father, Edward, who had fallen in love even though he is a vampire and she was a human. I was conceived during their honeymoon and only a month later I had been born.

Now, seven years later, I have the appearance of a typical human teenager around the age of sixteen. With me growing so quickly and my family not aging at all we had moved away from Forks only a few months after the aftermath of the Volturi's visit had finally settled. We were now living in a small, sunless town a few thousand miles from Forks. We went back often to visit Grandpa, and so Jacob could visit Billy. We had just moved about two years ago. After the whole Volturi thing cooled down, I had gone with Mom and Dad to Dartmouth. I wasn't a student, but they didn't want to be away from me; just like I didn't seem to want to be away from Jacob, so he had been with us too. While we were at Dartmouth, the rest of my family went off to live on their own; Rosalie and Emmett finally able to get married and live as a married couple should. Once Mom had finished with college we all joined back up and moved to this new town. We had been here for almost two years now, so I was used to spending my days with Esme. Everyone thought it was a bad idea for me to go to school, since I was still growing, so I did my best to stay out of the public eye. We knew I would stop growing soon, so I would be able to start going to school. I wondered what Esme did all those years, before I was born, when she was stuck in the house by herself. Although, on those rare sunny days, no one went to school, except Jacob. Jacob liked those days because he got to drive the Volvo. He tried on several occasions to talk Dad into letting him take the Vanquish, but he would always say that it was far too ostentatious to not draw attention. It was fun to watch these arguments between them, but Jacob would always lose. Jake's side of the argument would always consist of, "Oh, come on. Do you really think people don't notice you? No one would be surprised that you have a Vanquish…" it would go on like that for awhile, but he would never win.

I liked spending my days with Esme though. A lot of the day was spent with her homeschooling me so, when I did stop growing and started school, I would be caught up. I was quickly learning and easily bored, so we had been spending the last few days on calculus. I was already far beyond the knowledge I would need for school, but I figured being prepared wasn't a bad thing. Mom was a little annoyed about repeating high school, but she said it wasn't as bad this time around. She would joke and say, "At least people leave me alone this time." Apparently Mom had been quite the catch before she was changed. I didn't really know her prier to being a vampire, and the only memory I had of her as human wasn't very attractive, but that wasn't really her fault. Dad would get really annoyed when he caught people thinking about her in that way though. I could tell she thought it was funny to watch Dad's reaction; I thought it was funny too.

All in all, I was really excited to start school and make some human friends. I had Jacob, but he wasn't exactly human. It wasn't that my family wasn't enough, it was just that I wanted the chance to know some humans. It's half of what I am after all. Being a vampire was fun, but I wanted the chance to be human too.

Today was just like any other day, so everyone was at school; Carlisle at the hospital. Carlisle had found a great local hospital to work at that was more than happy to have him. I had the feeling that he would never stop helping people, no matter how long he lived. Carlisle's compassion was limitless and endless. He wasn't like anyone else.

We had all moved into town as a family in June, the school year already over, so that following September everyone had enrolled as freshmen in high school, even Jacob. They were all sophomores now, and the school year was almost over. They had just one more week and it would be summer again. I couldn't wait. Summer was always my favorite time of year. I could spend all the time I wanted with my family when they didn't have the obligation of school. I loved my family so much, and spending time with them was my favorite thing in the world to do.

Today Esme was taking a day off from the usual teaching; instead she was informing me of the stories of my family. I had heard them before, but never in depth. I gave each a simple name to make it easy to remember: Emmett and the bear, Dad and the influenza, Jasper and the angel… I found Uncle Jasper's the most interesting; it definitely explained a lot. Jazz was a completely different person now though. He had control over his instincts. I still remembered how he had been when I was first born, struggling to the change like he did. It was understandable though, what with the circumstance of his change and the beginning of his new life. After the change Maria fooled and tricked him into doing her bidding; if it wasn't for Alice there's no knowing how his second life would have turned out.

Esme had gotten through everyone else's story and was now finishing up with her own. Esme and the cliff, I liked to call it. When we heard the cars coming up the road, she quickly wrapped it up so I could run downstairs to wait for my family. It was my daily routine to go down and wait for them. I usually tried to get down to the garage in time to open the doors for them, but some days they were quicker than I was.

This was my favorite part of the day, when I got to see my family after being away from them for seven hours. The time didn't seem as bad to them, but when you never sleep, time passes more quickly. Jacob understood how I felt though. It was nice to at least have him around so we could do human things together. Out of the whole family we were the only ones that ate and slept after all. It was just refreshing to be able to share that human part of me with someone. There were other reasons I liked having Jake around though. I wasn't sure why he had become part of the family but he was great and I loved having him around.

When we had all moved to this new town Jake had come to live with us too, and although Rose still gave him a hard time, he was part of the family now. We never went anywhere without him, and he never went anywhere without me. And since I never went anywhere without the rest of my family, he was always with us. I hoped that there was meaning behind this, him never wanting to be away from me, but I couldn't be sure. I knew how I felt, but only Jasper and Dad would know his true feelings.

I made it to the garage in time to open the door for them today. Dad's Volvo and Rose's Convertible pulled into the garage with amazing grace. They had probably been going a hundred miles an hour, but they always stopped in time. Our heightened senses made tasks like these very easy. I figured for a normal, human person it would be near impossible. Before I knew it, there were seven other people in the garage with me. Jacob was the last one to join us.

I ran over to the Volvo and hugged Mom, Dad, and Jacob; my daily routine. Dad had a smirk on his face that I didn't understand; it looked like he thought something was funny. And Mom, well she looked smug. I figured that was because of my welcome that extended to Jacob now. Mom always seemed pleased by any progression in our relationship. I was pleased too.

I turned back to the Convertible then and greeted the rest of my family.

"How was school?" I asked, to no one in particular.

"The usual," Jasper answered with his arm slug around Alice as they both began walking towards the door that led into the house together.

"Yeah, the usual. You know, sitting in classes you've already had and throwing games in gym." Emmett said.

"So, I didn't miss anything?" I asked hoping to spark conversation, or to get a good story. Maybe I could even figure out what dad was still smirking about.

I saw Dad glance at Jacob, chuckle once, then look away. That's what I had been waiting for.

"Tell me," I said instantly.

"Tell you what?" Jasper asked confused, stopping both himself and Alice by the door.

"Not you," I said to Uncle Jazz. "You." I pointed at Jake.

"What are you talking about?" Jake asked innocently, trying to sound confused. Did he really not know what I was talking about? I thought about it for a second, no, he knew what I meant.

"Fine. Don't tell me." I snapped at Jacob. I hated being left out of anything, no matter how trivial. I didn't like feeling left out. It was bad enough that I couldn't go to school with them. It was only fair that I could at least know about anything I was missing.

"Dad?" I asked, turning away from Jacob to face him.

From the look on his face, he was playing the innocent card too. He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about. Dad couldn't play dumb. He could read minds. It was impossible for him to not know what was going on. He still tried though. He was a good liar.

"Oh, come on. I am half vampire. I saw the look you gave Jake. What happened? Tell me. Please."

He looked at Jake again, and it seemed that Jake said something to him. He was probably telling him that it was okay for him to tell me. They communicated silently like this a lot. It was very irritating for everyone involved.

"It seems that Jake is a bit of a ladies' man," he snickered. I raised my eyebrow trying to understand what he meant.

I looked at Jake then. I was trying not to laugh, but I knew I already had a grin on my face.

"What is he talking about?" I managed to get out.

Jacob sighed. "I got asked out by this girl today," he explained. It seemed he didn't want to talk about it, but I was going to make him.

"Oh, really?" I laughed. "And what's this girl's name?" I didn't really care what the girl's name was; I just liked teasing him. "I hope you let her down easy."

"He was an absolute gentleman," Dad said. "It was quite funny though; I could barely keep from laughing." Dad grinned.

"The poor girl could barely talk," Mom said.

"She actually had the nerve to come up to him at lunch while he was sitting with the rest of us," Emmett said sounding a little impressed.

I could picture it now- a human girl walking up to a table full of vampires in an attempt to ask out a werewolf. The idea was absolutely hilarious. Dad chuckled at this thought too.

"She was quite scared," Jasper said, smiling. He would know how she felt, after all.

"Completely terrified," Emmett agreed, chuckling.

"Don't be mean," Alice said. She sounded a little upset by the fact that they were poking fun at this girl. "That was a very hard thing to do. You have no idea how long it took her to build up the confidence to ask him. She'd been debating the idea for the past two weeks," she said sticking up for the girl.

Everyone looked at her now.

"Didn't you think to give me a heads up?" Jake asked.

"I did, but I saw that it would be more entertaining if I didn't." Alice smiled. Everyone started laughing then; I even heard Esme chuckle from inside the house.

"Alright, alright. Enough humor at my expense. Can we please move on to a new topic of conversation?" Jake begged. Did he really think he would get off that easily?

"Sure, sure." I said, mimicking Jacob's usual response; setting off the laughter again.

Jake rolled his eyes and started walking towards the door where Jasper and Alice were still standing. I followed him, matching his pace easily. I wasn't quite done picking on him yet. This one was too good to just let go.

"So, was this girl pretty?" I teased. I was a little curious though.

I heard Dad let out an angry sigh behind us.

"Not as pretty as you," he answered, sounding very sincere. I hated it when he did that; I couldn't keep picking on him when he was complimenting me.

I blushed and leaned my weight against his side.

"Are you done badgering me now?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

I pretended to think about it for a moment. Jake glared at me, and I chuckled.

"Kidding," I reassured him. "And yes, you're off the hook."

"Thanks."

I could hear Emmett coming up from behind us, each of my family having their own individual sound to their walk; everyone did. I looked back over my shoulder to see him standing with us.

"Just because she let you off the hook doesn't mean I have. You're going to be hearing about this for weeks," Emmett said, throwing his arm around Jake's shoulder. "Possibly months," he corrected after thinking about it for a moment. "You'd better be ready; it's going to get rough."

Jake mourned. "See what you did?" he said to me.

"This is not my fault," I disagreed.

"You started it," he playfully contradicted.

Alice was suddenly at my side.

"She's right," she chimed in. "He would have done it one way or the other," she said, putting an end to our playful bickering.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Very mature," Jake said to me chuckling.