AN: I do not own VA or Twilight or any other book/TVshows/movies that I may or may not have referenced in this piece.

Chapter 1. -Training, moving and early Birthday gifts.

The morning sunlight unexpectedly rushed into my bedroom. I groaned, covering my head with my blanket.

"Now!"

Her voice was stern. She peeled the quilt back from me exposing my scantily clad body. I rolled, stuffing my head under the pillow. "Come on mum, my alarm hasn't even gone off yet." My voice was muffled.

Her cold hand clenched around one of my ankles, reefing my whole body a couple inches down, just enough so that my head was out from under the pillow.

I groaned again.

"Dominica Janine Belikov get your butt out of bed right now! We have to get started."

I opened my eyes. She was standing over me shaking her head at me.

I rolled back over and my feet landed on the floor. She was already on her way out the door, her long dark brown hair swinging side to side as she walked.

"Don't bother with a shower. We're running today."

Ugh! My most hated of training sessions. Running. I rummaged through one of a number of unpacked boxes that scattered my floor for my training gear. I finally found it at the bottom of a box labelled 'misc'.

"Hurry up Demi!" my mother called from downstairs.

I reached the bottom of the stairs to be met by my mother with a map.

"We have to plot the new route and do a warm up and we only have two and a half hours before your due at school."

I made a face as I set my foot up on the third step and stretched my hamstrings.

"Hey," I asked, moving onto the next set of stretches, "what's with all the running, anyway? I mean, I realize the importance of stamina and all that, but shouldn't I be moving on to something with a little more hitting or stabbing?" I arched an eyebrow curiously, "Your kicking my butt at sparing."

"Maybe you should hit harder or stop holding back," she replied dryly. She had already drawn a thin black line along the path she wanted us to run.

"Nice, mum." Hit harder. Yeah, that'll work. She had 34 years on me with regards to training and her advise is to hit harder. Nice mentoring mother.

We hit the streets. Even with the morning sun streaming through the thin sprinkling of clouds, it was still cold. Our breaths visible in the air.

We had been here less then a week. Port Angeles in the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State. This sleepy seaside village existed under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains here more then any other place in the United States.

But today we were lucky. Or at least my mother thought so. Though, I think that even if it had been raining we would still be pounding the pavement. Ugh!

The only upside - if it was even an upside - to running was it gave you plenty of time to think. We generally kept silent during these times. Not as a rule. It just helped you run better when you didn't have hold a conversation. It let me think.

I was turning sixteen in two days time and I had finally convinced my mother to let me go back to normal school. She had been home schooling me since I was ten. Ever since the first attack. I grimaced. Flexing my left arm. The skin there permanently tight from the healed burn marks that snaked from my hand halfway up my forearm.

Always conscious of the burns, in public, I always worn fingerless gloves. Though stylish - at least I thought so - they were more practical then anything. They protected the sensitive skin from the sunlight.

I tried not to think of that night almost six years ago but my mind perpetually fell into the memory.

It was before I knew anything. Anything about the world my mother left. The one of vampires.

Well Moroi and Dhampir and Strigoi. She had raised me single handed on her own. Away from that world and its influences. She was a young mother too, having me when she was only 18. She was a Dhampir - half human, half Moroi - though she never did graduate from her special training academy which was designed to train the Dhampir to become Guardians.

Guardians protect the Moroi .They were super strong, had heighten senses and trained from, like birth apparently, to protect the Moroi from the Strigoi. The evil vampires. The dead ones.

I had no idea of anything to do with any of it. My mother had raised me amongst the humans. Mostly to stay under the radar. I went to school, I did gymnastics and had a stack of friends. She, too, costed through with a job as a ju-jitsu and kick boxing teacher.

But all that changed on the night of the attack. It was a normal night. Nothing out of the ordinary. I had gymnastic practice. Which at the time I had four nights a week and a half day on Sundays after church. I was friends with most of the other girls on the squad. We had all been doing gym since we were littles doing tykes tumbling together.

Our coach, Ms Renalia was Polish and had big dreams for all of us. Hoping that we'd all might turn into something good enough to someday go the Olympics or something crazy like that. She always rode us pretty hard, especially for us being so young.

That night I had been practicing my floor routine for an up coming event. She had watched the others go through the motions for most of the night and when it was nearly home time she came over to scrutinise me. She made me go through my entire routine from start to finish. It only took 8 minutes but then she made me go through it again this time stopping every few seconds to tell me exactly what I had done wrong.

This went on for about half an hour, my mother was sitting in the bleaches where all the parents sat glaring at Ms Renalia. Most of the other girls had gone into the locker room to shower and change and she was obviously getting pissy about me being kept back.

Eventually she had told me enough and to hit the showers. I walked down the empty corridor not realising that none of the other girls had come out yet. I pushed through the swinging door to the lockers. Steam had filled the room making it hard to see much, but this was usual after practice.

What wasn't usual was the silence. It was so quiet that all I could hear was the water running from the showers at the back of the room. Typically the locker area was filled with squealing, yelling and sometimes fighting. But nothing.

I wondered down the isle created by the lockers towards the showers at the back. I had thought that maybe they were playing some kinda joke on me. Like hoping to scare me.

What I saw, when I got to the end of that first row, would stay with me for life. The tiles of the showers were splattered with blood. Crimson specks up the walls, water running pink and seven little bodies slumped, some still dressed in their leotards others semi naked from showering, in unnatural positions on the shower floor. Water running around them.

And two others. Their skin was white, chalky in a way that made it look like the result of a bad makeup job. The pupils of their eyes had a red ring around them, driving home that they weren't normal. Their postures were slumped over a body each. Blood dripping from their mouths. Hands each clenching a tiny body of one of my class mates.

The woman was short and had brown hair with a bad highlight job. Her clothes that probably had been white before were covered with thick oozing blood that was quickly congealing around her.

The mans expression had been cold and calculating, laced with malicious amusement. He was tall and thin with shoulder length black hair that framed his face. It was wet from the running shower that he'd crouched under.

I had gasped in a lung full of air at the sight. Terror had ripped through me in the exact second his red eyes met my own. I had staggered backwards pressing up against the side of the lockers. He rose in a slow motion his eyes never leaving me. I couldn't even squeak out a sound. He spoke with a menacing tone, "Look Abigail," flicking his eyes to the woman, blood and water dripping from his clothes and face, "dessert."

Suddenly, Ms Renalia burst through the doors. She spoke with her slight accent, "Hurry up girls! Your parents are waiting…" her voice faded as she soon saw the same scene that I had. She muttered something in what I thought was Polish.

The man didn't even hesitate as he launched himself at her. The woman looked up at that, her eyes flashing to me.

I had turned to try to escape. She was by my side in the blink of an eye. She breathed deeply as if to take in my scent. A curious, almost puzzled look burst across her face, "You're not a human."

I fled. I turned around and ran as fast as I could down the third isle of lockers. She had followed, slamming me face first into the lockers.

She spun me around to look me in the eyes. My heart was beating so fast. Adrenalin causing through my veins. I was beyond scared.

The woman was so close, pressing herself against me. I put my hands up to try to push her away. My vision tinged slightly to a red colour. It was then I felt the burning feeling. It started in my finger tips but soon spread to my hands and up my arms.

She screamed as flames leapt from my finger tips. Catching her alight. She pulled away from me, staggering still screaming away from me. I couldn't look away as she burned. Her hands curling into fists and her milky white skin turning a brown charcoal colour. Her screaming died away to a gurgling sound as she slipped onto the wet ground.

The man, who was hidden behind the other lockers, bobbed up at the sound of his partners screams. His eyes wide with shock. He launched himself to the tops of the lockers. Peering down at the unmoving, flame engulfed remains of the woman.

An enraged snarl resonated from him. He leaped again, landing inches from me. I held my hands up for protection. Tears sliding down my face. Again, flames rippled from my fingertips, shooting across the space between me and him. He flinched back waving his arms trying to deflect the blaze. But he too caught alight. He staggered forward seizing my left hand.

The burning had all but left my arms and hands. But he was still alight and his burning flesh grasped around my wrist setting the long sleave of my leotard a light.

It was then that my mother had come. She reefed his hands from mine. Sending him sprawling backwards to the opposite wall.

I hadn't know I was screaming until her hand clamped over my mouth, silencing me. She smothered the flames on me with her jacket. Tears still falling from my eyes as I slid to the floor. She had turned around to examine both of the flaming piles.

I don't know what happened next but she had somehow gotten hold of some flammable liquid, probably from the utility closet next to the lockers. She was squirting it everywhere. Up the walls, over the benches, on top of the flaming bodies and towards the seven little bodies slumped in the showers. As soon as the liquid touched the fire it blazed a bright white. Trailing up and back where my mother had sprayed it.

It took less then two minutes for the whole room to catch alight. Smoke mixing in with the steam choking all the air out of the room. My mother had scooped me up and we were out of there.

"What are you thinking?" My mothers voice interrupted my memory. She was panting just as hard as I was.

"Nothing, just school."

"Well hurry up, your slowing down and we need to set a new time for this course."

I picked up my pace and she followed suit. My muscles screaming all sorts of obscenities at me. I knew we were nearly done when she led us around the corner of our street. She stopped at the front of our house, jogging on the spot as apart of her warm down exercises. Her hand reaching out to stop the watch she was timing with.

"I'm glad you know which one is ours," I said as I started my warm down, "they all look the same to me." I made a face.

I didn't like it here. But she did. She said she liked the quietness of it all. I preferred it when we stayed in New York for six months when I was 13. But of corse I'd screwed it up again. Throwing a tantrum that consisted of a whole lot of wind, a whole lot of rain, a whole lot of lightening, a whole bunch of earth shaking and unfortunately a whole bunch of witnesses.

Probably why we'd stuck to small towns ever since. Maybe she was scared that I cause another scene like that one but I hadn't. I mean you only find out about menstruation, for the first time, once and after that your practically a pro.

"Ten miles in thirty-eight minutes and twenty-three seconds." She puffed proudly. "That's pretty good. Now you just have to break it."

"Sure mum and leave you behind in the dust somewhere?" I joked.

"If I'm holding you back at all, you can always run on your own." She said with all seriousness.

"Nah, I like the competition. And if you didn't run with me, I'd probably slack off."

We finished off the warm down with more stretches.

"Okey, its seven now. I want you to do half an hour of weights then hit the showers and get ready for school."

Excitement hit my face as soon as she said that. School. Yes! The only bad thing about me being back in a public school was the fact that mum had to drive me to and from school every day. That would really grow thin and soon. As it was I'd be the freaky burns girl who was home schooled for six years.

"I've got something to show you when your through, too. So don't dawdle."

"Okey, mum."

I was so glad to have a shower after my weight session. I practically just stood there letting the steaming hot water run down my back. I could have almost fallen asleep right in the shower if it hadn't been for the fact that my mother had just about bashed down the bathroom door yelling at me to get out.

I pulled on some clean jeans from another unpacked box and burgundy long sleave v-neck. I put my black fingerless gloves on as well. They were made of fine, see-through black lace with thick trims around the fingers and elbow. They didn't cover up the burns completely but you couldn't see them completely either.

I grabbed my bag, a cute little dirt encrusted side satchel, and my shoes and headed downstairs. I sat on the bottom step to put my shoes on. My mother walked past me. She was already ready. Perfectly presented with her long hair tied into a low bun and the base of her neck. She always wore her hair like that. It was so pretty and long and I swear if she would wear it up she'd hook a man in no time. But she didn't. Ever.

She handed me a folder filled with blank paper and a thick leather bound book half its size.

"What's this for?" I asked puzzled.

She rolled her eyes, "What do you think it's for? To write on. Now come here I want to give you something."

I followed her to the dining room. On the table sat three different sized wrapped presents. I groaned. My birthday wasn't for two days so I know what this meant. It meant she wasn't going to be here for it.

"Do you have to go?" I asked trying not to sound whinny but without luck.

"Yes, now open them. The big one first." She replied shoving the largest one into my hands. It was soft, so probably clothes. Which I didn't mind. I love clothes. I pealed the glittery pink paper off and pulled out my present.

Whoa! It was a knee length suede coat. It was tan, complete with fake fur trimming around the edges of the collar and sleeves. Oh my gosh. I loved it. I held it up to me taking in its leathery smell. She knew I'd love it. She had this crooked kind of smile on her face reaching all the way to her eyes. I hugged her still holding the coat in my hands.

"If you think that's cool, wait till you see what else I've got you." She said teasingly.

She took the jacket from me slinging it over the back of the nearest dining chair and handed me the next present. The medium one.

It was extremely heavy for its size. Just a little bit bigger then a box of Kleenex but weighed a couple pounds. I tore the paper off this one much quicker then I had with the coat. Tossing it on the floor at my feet. It was a box. I held the top as the bottom slowly slid off with a soft thunk onto the dining table.

There were two identical silvery objects in the box. I pulled one out to examine it further. I looked at my mother who was watching me intensely. It almost looked like a stake. Almost. It was about the same size as one, just a little bit longer then my forearm. But instead of having the thick rounded body that narrowed into a point like a stake, it had three thin points. The two on the outside shorter then the middle one. It kinda looked like a trident or devils pitchfork that was small enough to wield with your hand. Or both hands because there were two.

There were little symbols carved into the hilt. I ran my fingers over them. "What…" I started.

"They are rune symbols for the five elements. Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Spirit. They called Stylus'. Mostly for offensive combat but a little bit of defensive, too. They were blessed just the same as a stake is. But with the exception of the spirit element, it's a very rare element. Hardly anyone left to wield it. But very powerful." A little worry passed across her face. "When I get back, I'll be teaching you how to use them."

She paused, watching me fit my fingers around the points, two on either side of the middle point.

"Properly."

She took these from me too, putting them back into the box and replacing the lid. She glanced up to the wall clock. It was Eight. I had to be a school by eight-forty and it was a half an hour drive.

"Okey, okey last one." She handed me the smallest of the three. The box fitted into the palm of my hand. Maybe jewellery? She knew I didn't really like jewellery. She had practically forced me to wear the Nazar eye thingy that was her mothers and only because she said it would protect me or something weird like that. I just didn't want to hurt her feelings because her father had given it to her mother who had given it to her. Like an heirloom.

A funny look crossed her face. "Its not jewellery."

I frowned back at her. How did she always do that. Guess what I was thinking. I hate it.

"Just open it. Your going to be late for school." She rolled her eyes.

So I did. It wasn't Jewellery. It was a key and key ring. I held it up out of the box. The key was nothing special a big black top with a silver shaft. Just like most keys. They key ring was round. Shaped like a lady bug with red enamel highlighting certain spots. I didn't get it. I already had house keys.

She rolled her eyes again, "Oh my god!!" she gasped obviously at my incomprehension, "Its in the driveway."

"What?" Then it dawned on me.

She got me a car.