A.N. Hello everyone! Thank you for being patient with me while I wrote this and sticking by me. I never intended to neglect my stories so much and deeply apologise for it. I hope you enjoy my next instalment of A Life Like No Other, please leave a review or drop me a pm, I love hearing back from you and will endeavour to respond to all of you. This instalment will cover a lot and while these first few chapters will be full of a bit of background information, the story will move along pretty quickly after that and cover some intense themes, so stick by me for now if you think it is too stretched out or too fluffy for even boring.

Enjoy xx

A Life Like No Other: Book 2

Chapter 1

1st May 2010

Another moving day

I would gather that any family moving across a couple of states would be a daunting task, but with a family of twelve which includes eight vampires, two half vampires, and two very large shape shifting wolves, this move was giving everyone nightmares. Even the eight vampires that don't sleep were getting nightmares! Well, sort of. Our current family home in Forks, Washington, was now far too small as it was designed for eight and we had also been living in the area for far too long and becoming conspicuous so we were moving to Kalispell in Montana. I didn't want to leave my favourite place in the world, but I knew I would be returning in a few years thanks to a vision from Alice, but I will get to that later. I would only be able to return to Forks in a few years if we left now so it gave people long enough to mostly forget us and make it easier for me to start fresh later when I wanted a 'normal' life. Not many people in town knew me, and my rapid aging would mean no one would recognise me in a few years.

Anyway, we were moving tomorrow, which meant I had to have my room in the cottage packed up (once again) before I went to bed tonight and I haven't even started yet. Six hours until I normally go to bed and I still had to pack my clothes, any old toys I wanted to take, all of my books (about two hundred of them), my large music collection and the biggest job; I had to clean under my bed. Just because I am faster than humans, it does not mean I don't take shortcuts when I clean my room to get it done faster. It annoys Mom to no end, but because I have technically done what she wanted and made my room look nice, she doesn't complain too much but she did tell me that I would eventually regret it, and boy has that day has come.

Under my bed was a jungle of storage boxes of old toys, random bags and boxes of junk, and a few rare items that held a lot of meaning to me. I had four photo albums in one of the boxes under my bed, spanning the three and a half years of my life and also including the important parts of my family's lives; weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions like someone new joining the family. These events were all from long before I was born but I liked to look at that and see how my family were before me. My album that covered my third year of life was still unfinished, as I would not turn four for about four months but the time it did cover involved some of the biggest changes I have had in my life so far. I decided to have a break from cleaning to look through the album as I was mostly finished now and had about three hours to go.

The first pages were filled with pictures of me with Addie when she was a baby, and me with my family and the pack when I was about twelve. Some of them were simple shots of groups of people posing for the photo and others were candid shots they didn't see coming. My favourite photo here was a candid one of Emmett and Addie; Emmett was holding Addie's tiny hands in his own massive ones and was swinging her around in the air. She didn't look much older than about two of three and both of them had beautiful expression of joy on their face, a wonderful father-daughter moment caught on camera. This was also the moment I discovered that I enjoyed being behind the camera far more than in front of it as I had the power to capture moments like this and keep them forever. It was a little bit like my gift really, being able to capture exactly what I wanted and show it to people in the way I wanted, except the photos were far more permanent than anything I could project and weren't limited by my imagination.

That brought me to the next section of my photo album which was mainly photos I had taken myself of Forks and the surrounding areas as a way for me to remember them when I wasn't there. Some of my favourites were photos I took while we were hunting in the surrounding area as a whole family. I didn't just take the shots from standard angles but I climbed trees and boulders and laid in ditches to catch my subjects unaware. There was a series of photos of Addie 'helping' Jasper with his deer by hitting the poor animal's legs out from under it which resulted in Jasper flying clear over the deer and into Emmett, and then Addie claiming the animal for herself. That was her first official prey she had taken herself, and she was only the size of a three year old; I didn't hunt my first prey for myself until I was at least five or six! I suppose I was a bit over protected at her age because everyone thought I was fragile and going to die in a decade or two if the Volturi didn't get me first. Oh well, at least that part of my life is over now and I can pretend to have a normal life now.

The next section of my album was purely 'selfies' I had taken in front of my mirror over a period of three weeks when I had a ridiculously fast growth spurt. Or I guess it was puberty really, just condensed into weeks rather than years. We first noticed I was starting to grow quickly when I looked about twelve and I started to eat a huge amount of food and I started to put on a little weight onto my gangly frame and I grew about two inches in two days. I went from the gangly proportions of a thin, athletic child, to the more filled out and rounded proportions of a teenager within ten days. I thought of taking the photos daily to make a little flip book so I could see myself grow before my eyes. Unfortunately I grew too fast and there weren't enough pictures for a flip book to work. Within a few days of this growth spurt starting I started to develop breasts and my hips became much wider, while my waist stayed fairly small, resulting in me having a great womanly figure and similarly proportioned to Rosalie, but a little thinner and quite gangly. I was still young after all.

A week into the growth spurt I looked fifteen or sixteen year's old and not far behind mentally, but my body was still catching up with this growth. This was also when I started to really notice Jacob, I mean really notice him, and how tall and fit he was, and his muscly arms and body, and just how handsome he was. He consumed all of my thoughts, all day every day I thought about my Jacob and imagined falling in love with him. Dad was a little uncomfortable with hearing these thoughts though and Jasper had some issues with feeling my suddenly intense attraction but they just had to deal with it. Mom tried helping with the thoughts by shielding me whenever she could. She claimed it was good practice for her to use her gift during times when no one was in danger, making it easier for her to just pop up the shields. Dad relaxed a lot once that happened, although a few times he tensed up when Jacob was around.

But Jacob wasn't around Dad too often right now. While we were in Forks he had been living back with his Dad and spending time with the pack and his sister Rachel, and his new little niece Sarah. Rachel and Emily had both given birth within a month of each other and Sarah and Elijah, Sam and Emily's son, were almost one. Even though Jacob wasn't here twenty-four-seven, I saw him every day, either I would go down to La Push, of he would come up here for the day. When I was in La Push I would often run with the boys as I had finally gained the ability to run at full vampire speed and keep up with the wolves. This was great because I was able to run patrols with the wolves so I could learn how to track different scents in a very scent rich environment like the forest. I spent a lot of time with Leah and Anna during this time. Although I had been close with Leah before, it was different because there was such a large age gap, like I was hanging around with my cool, older cousin. Now we could be more like friends, the same sort of relationship that I had with Anna.

Anna was very interesting, she was Embry's little sister and they had always assumed they had different Dads. But then about a year ago she had a fight with her mom and ran into the woods to get away from her mom as she was so angry, but tripped making her angrier, to the point where she phased. No one expected her to even carry the gene as Embry got it from his dad, although they didn't know who his dad was. This lead to some interesting questions for their mom about who their father was, and the revelation that their father was actually Joshua Uley; Sam's dad. It was a relief for some of the boys because Jacob and Quil were also wondering if they were about to find out if they had a brother and sister which could have really messed up their families. Thankfully Sam was aware his father had done some shit things in the past before leaving his mother. Anna was great though, she really took to being a wolf and she and Leah even teamed up to help teach me how to fight well even though I was smaller and weaker than the average person I would possibly need to defend myself from. I could now hold my own against quite a few of the wolves and possibly my family but they didn't know I had been learning this and what they didn't know couldn't hurt them. Right?

Right as I was starting to become attracted to Jacob I went through Hell on Earth, the grand finale of puberty, I started my period. Compared to my apparent age it was a little late in my development, but considering I did this all at an accelerated rate I guess it was normal. In an ordinary family it would be bad enough, but my family could smell it. They never said anything about it but the fact that I knew that they knew was bad enough. And the fact that when it actually happened Mom was out hunting with Alice, Rosalie and Esme, and I had to awkwardly yell from the bathroom for someone to bring me the phone so I could call someone. Jake's sister Rachel ended up going to the store for me and bringing the necessary products and teaching me how to use them after I tried calling just about every woman I knew, except Leah; that was still a touchy issue. At first I was annoyed that my own mother wasn't there to help, but she later confided in me that she had lost those human memories and wouldn't have been the best help. Great idea Mom, give birth to a daughter and then forget one of the more important lessons you will need to teach her. Well done, keep up the good work.

While I was undergoing my rapid growth we discovered a few things about me, more specifically the way my body grows and responds to hormones. When I was younger we assumed that my skin was almost as tough as vampire skin although no one wanted to test it. After I was attacked by a bear while hunting with Jasper we assumed that it simply took a large amount of force to puncture my skin, but now we had learned differently. It made sense looking back on it, but during times of rapid growth my skin was much softer, more human, and during more stable periods of growth was when my skin was harder and more vampire like. This was intriguing to everyone and lead to us running a few genetic tests on me, and the results were interesting in the way that I had twenty four pairs of chromosomes, one more than humans, one less than vampires exactly as you would expect from when a human and vampire had a child. This wasn't surprising at all, but what was surprising was that using some special technique didn't understand, we were able to observe that my body was constantly switching different genes on and off which triggered the release of different hormones in my body and then how my body behaved; human or vampire like, and therefore how tough my skin was and how much I grew.

I was getting distracted and I needed to get back on task and clean this room and pack everything that was important so I could take it with me tomorrow. Ergh. Seven hundred and thirteen miles from Forks to Kalispell and google maps told me it should take eleven hours and thirty eight minutes driving with no traffic, if we avoided the tolls, which we generally did to give us a better route to travel our speed. Dad thought it should take us six or seven hours to make it to the new house. But still, ergh. Do not want to spend that long in the car. I need to get back to work. Maybe after dinner, it's already ten past six.

I ran over to the main house for a quick dinner of macaroni and cheese and a few bits and pieces from the fridge; leftover roast chicken from last night, a bit of cheese and some carrot and celery sticks. Esme wanted us to finish as much of the food as possible from the fridge because we wouldn't be able to take it with us and the wolves didn't really want to take the food because it had been around vampires too much and smelled bad, apparently. Addie, Esme and I were the only ones home at the moment as everyone else was hunting before leaving so we talked about the move and how things would be different in the new house.

"But Nan, I don't understand why I have to call you by your first name? No one is going to see me anyway." Addie complained. It was difficult for her to change so much, she was still mentally very young, much more immature than I was at that age from a mix of not being forced into a life or death situation and also having a family intent on giving her a relaxed and fun childhood.

"We probably won't see a lot of people often, but what if there is an emergency and you have to come with me to the school or the hospital and you accidentally call me Nan? Everyone would ask lots of questions." Explained Esme in her most patient tone, even after being asked this a hundred times in the past week.

"Addie, it is easier to practice at home so we don't make mistakes in public." I added, "I have to call Mum and Dad, Bella and Edward, as well as Esme and Carlisle! At least if you mess up its probably going to be at home, imagine if I said 'Mum' or 'Dad' in a class!" I laughed, and they joined in, before Addie sunk back into her mood.

"I don't like it and I want to stay here, I like it here!" Addie was behaving like a true six year old now but at least she grew fast enough that the angry six year old wouldn't be here much longer.

We explained to her about why we needed to move and she understood why it was necessary as she was extremely smart much like I was at that age, but her emotions were still very prominent in her decision making like any child. Just because she understood why didn't mean she was going to let it happen without a fight. She was quite like Rose as well, wanting to be in control and have people hear her thoughts and make her opinions known. She basically liked being the centre of attention. I had grown to be more like Mum in the way that I was happy to let things happen and observe but let people know if I didn't like it, but I could also be like dad in the way that I could be very stubborn if I thought I was right. I thought the move would be great; a change of scenery and a new start, a chance to be human. I also knew that I would be back in Forks soon enough.

Alice had seen a vision of me returning to Forks, married and with children. She wouldn't tell me any details whatsoever but I could guess. My thoughts for how it would happen was that I would finish school, go to college with Jacob, fall madly in love while we were there, travel a bit and then get married and have lots of children. We did have forever after all. But I was guessing it would be ten or twelve years before that vision came true. It was a shock when Alice had the vision because she hadn't had one of me before that. We could only guess what it meant but I thought that maybe I was starting to manifest more human or more vampire like behaviours instead of just floating somewhere in the middle. She still hadn't had any visions of any of the wolves but because she had spent so much time around them, even living with Jake, she was better able to see around them and manipulate the visions around the wolves, leaving her with a blank spot in her visions that gave her a slight headache to concentrate on. Or so she told me anyway! I was sure she kept things from us all to make life a little more interesting.

I tried my best to not dwell on the facts I knew about the vision, but I did indulge myself a little and allow myself to imagine my possible future wedding. I imagined the big dress, fancy venue and all my family and friends around me as I held on to my Dad's arm as we slowly walked down the aisle. Beautiful fragrant roses and lilies covered every surface and the traditional wedding march was played by Rose on a magnificent white grand piano-

"Nessie. Where were you just now?" Esme asked me, interrupting my day dream.

"Oh, somewhere far away where I don't need to finish packing my room up to move." I sighed dramatically.

"You haven't finished packing? What have you been doing all day, and for the last week? It isn't like you haven't known we were moving?" Said Esme, sounding a little flustered. "No one has finished packing yet except for me! You all have super strength and speed so you leave everything to the last minute." She ranted.

"Well I should probably go back to the cottage to pack then or face your wrath." I joked as I walked towards the back door. "Thanks for dinner!" I yelled cheekily, running into the forest quickly to avoid the look I was probably getting for my comments. She knew I was joking.

….

I finally finished packing with a little help from Mom last night and was in bed by eleven, quite a bit later than I planned. I was so excited for the new house that I didn't sleep well either so now I was awake at five thirty am eating a quick breakfast of eggs on toast and raspberry pop tarts while the family packed the cars.

We had a few new cars to go with the new cars, and everyone had listened to Mom when she pointed out that they didn't fit in and their cars were too ostentatious. The solution was to have the 'fun cars' and motorbikes, and then a couple of 'functional' cars. The fun ones were the usual flashy luxury cars that they always had such as BMW's and Porsches, but the functional cars were a big black Range Rover and a new Jeep for Emmett. Still ridiculously expensive, but less in-your-face flashy and easier to get around in a small town in. Of course Rose had tinkered with them to make them almost as fast as any of the sports cars we owned but to the public they looked like standard factory made cars.

Once the cars were packed with the few important items we were taking with us we arranged who was in what car and the important order of the cars which was planned to decrease the risk of being pulled over. Of course Mum, Rose, and Alice all wanted to drive their own cars; those three really were the rev-heads of the family. Dad, Jake and I were in the Volvo in first position of the line, then Alice in her yellow Porsche, followed by Emmett with Seth and Addie in the Jeep with a trailer for the bikes, then Jasper in the Range Rover again with a trailer full of our belongings. After him it was Mum in her Ferrari, and then Carlisle and Esme bringing up the rear. It was still weird to address my grandparents by the first names but I was getting used to it.

The order of the cars was essential because Dad was able to scan thoughts ahead of our little convoy and we could relay messages, and Alice being next could watch the future and Dad was close enough to pick up any important visions. This was important to make the journey as quick as possible without just getting out and running to the new house. Dad told me that was how they used to move, pack a bag each to carry and race each other there. But now it was too difficult with such a big group and people who needed to sleep.

We pulled out of the yard and onto the long driveway at exactly six am, and started the long journey east, with Alice's current predicted time of arrival at two pm. I looked to Jake next to me in the back of the car and saw he was half asleep so I decided to follow suit. I laid down across my seat and the middle seat, curled tightly to ensure I fit and laid my head on Jake's warm leg and fell asleep within minutes, just as we drove past the sign declaring we were leaving Forks. I caught a glimpse of it: 'Thank you for visiting Forks, we hope to see you again soon'.

Yeah, you too Forks. You too.