Chapter One

At least no one would know me as 'the girl who's parent's were murdered.' No, they would just know me as 'the girl who came out of nowhere.' Which, to these people, I would be like some foreign person from Asia. Instead of work jeans, I had on sweats with designs on them. Instead of a sweatshirt or a button up cowboy/girl shirt, I had on a T-shirt that came from Vanity (you know, the kind that looks like it cost like fifty bucks, but you got on sale for like five, yeah, that one). Instead of work boots, I had on skater-shoes that had skulls on them. And God-forbid that I had two piercings in my ear. One piercing around here was a outrageous thing to do, two piercings? Now that's just straight out rebellion! Little did they know that I was from L.A, California. You ever hear of it? Yeah, it's the land of five piercings in each ear, nose rings, eyebrow rings, lip and tongue rings. Hell! I've seen a piercings on the forehead, where they drill a hole.

"There's no freaking way we're related." I muttered to my new-found brother, Ari.

"Why do you say that?" He asked me, eyes still on the road.

"Because there's no way a brother of mine would ever live in a place like this." I explained. "I'm a city girl, and so my brother should be too."

"We're only biologically related," He reminded me. "Where you prefer to live depends on how you were raised and who you grew up with. Since we grew up in total different habitats, we're different."

"That's for sure."

"Don't worry, I actually live in town. This place you see out here is most of the population of Eureka."

That's right. Eureka, Oregon. I seriously doubt more than two thousand people live in the area. That's like a tenth of how many people we can cram into a stadium in good old Angeles.

"What's that on your finger." I tapped his ring finger.

"That would be my wedding ring." He replied.

"You're married?" Not that he was ugly or anything. But Ari…my…uh, brother, didn't exactly seem to be the type of person to be married. Whoever it was must have been on something when she said yes.

"You're surprised?" He asked. "Don't worry, I still am too."

"No." I lied. "No one told me."

"You didn't ask." He pointed out.

"Touché."

I know people fairly well. Ari was surprised that I was so…normal right after my parent's murder. But the thing is, this wasn't normal for me. I think that I'm in denial. Besides, that's one of the five stages of death, right? So that should be okay. Anyways, it's not normal for me to be cheery at all. Before the murder, I was kind of a depressing teen. So was my room, a dark purple. It was more calming rather than depressing, like black. What most people will notice about me, is that I do where dark clothing, but it's not just pure black. It's almost always red, purple or blue. But at least Ari had the brains not to mention it. I don't really like it when other people ask to many questions.

"Any other things I should know about?" I asked. I said I hated it when other people asked to many questions. I never said anything about myself. I can ask as many questions as I want. If anyone has a problem, they can say it to my face. But don't worry, I don't really ask that many questions anyways. Today has just been a very inquisitive day for me.

"Yeah, well…you'll find out when we get there." He reassured me. But the tone is his voice just made me even more not assured than before.

I crossed my arms across my chest, not liking that he won't tell me what I want to know, even though I have no idea what I want to know.

The motion of the car was slowing, and I looked up in questioning, my question being answered by a drive way and a huge cabin.

"You live here?" I asked, almost shocked. But, of course, after witnessing your own parent's being murdered, it will take a lot to shock you even a little bit. This, though, was very surprising.

"Well, my…no our stepdad happens to be a very rich man. Not a billionaire, but definitely a multi millionaire. He over-sees all the Wal-Mart's in Oregon, while giving us 10% of his earnings, which is about 200,000$ a year. Plus the money that I make, about fifty grand, plus the money that my wife Whitney makes, about eighty grand."

Whoa…that's a lot of money for a couple in his twenties.

"In summary, you're a very lucky man." I concluded.

"Yes, yes I am, but I'm even luckier that I have Whitney."

"Can she cook?" I asked.

"She can, but that's what Iggy does all day, he cooks.:

"Iggy?" I asked.

"Whitney's brother." He answered for me.

"He lives with you too?" How many unknown siblings (in-laws…kind of) did I have again?

"Also Ella, a full sister. And Whitney's other brother too."

"Do you have that many rooms?" Honest to say, I kind of wanted my own room. But I was lucky that I didn't have to go into the foster care system. My friend, J.J was in the system for two years until she was adopted. Let's just say that she was very lucky to be alive, considering the condition of her home previous to the adopted family.

"You're going to have to share a room with Ella for the time-being while we paint your new room. I'm guess dark purple, right?"

"You saw my room?" When did he see my room? When was he at my house?

"I saw some pictures from the evidence file." He explained.

"Oh."

"I just hope that we don't have two kids while you guys are still living with us."

"You have a kid, too?"

"One's on the way, just one that we know of." He answered.

"That's interesting." If I didn't have training on how to control my inner emotions, I probably woud have exploded right then and there. It's not that I was mad, disappointed or sad. Surprisingly, I was overwhelmingly happy. I was gong to be an aunt! And I didn't have to wait the whole nine months.

"How far along is she?"

"About four months." See? Only five months. Actually…that sounded like a long time from now. He didn't seem shocked now, but he was going to be when the baby started coming. Some hot sauce and ice cold water will take care of that very nicely. Let's just say that I helped give a home birth with J.J, and the father of that baby woke up from his fainting just fine after some hot sauce. Don't worry, J.J is two years older than me, and she was seventeen when she gave birth, it's not like she was fourteen. And the 'father' wasn't actually the biological father of the baby, but they just acted like it because they didn't have a clue who the real one was. NO one else knew about it but me.

"Are we going to get out of this car anytime soon?"

"I was just waiting for you." He lied.

I jumped out of the car, grabbing the bag of my few remaining clothes that I had left over at J.J's for whenever I slept over at her house. All the clothes at my house were not something that I wanted to deal with. Plus, the murder happened in the laundry room, and I had put most of my clothes there for me to wash sometime that day…or week. I didn't exactly want to wear stuff that had my parent's blood all over it. That might be something to do if I was in India, but I was in America, folks. It's not going to happen here.

"Your room is up the stairs, second one on the left. Put your stuff in there and then come downstairs to meet everyone."

"Ok." I agreed, already half-way up the stairs.

I guessed that the air mattress on the floor was mine, so I flopped all of my stuff on there. Then I realized that I really had to pee. I hadn't went to the bathroom since some truck stop in northern California.

Thankfully the bathroom was right across the hallway. I bounded into the bathroom, slammed the door shut and did my business.

"Come on, Ella, I have to go, too, you know."

I opened the door to find either Fang or Iggy. Bleach blonde hair along with blue eyes and really tall. Most guys weren't this tall at fifteen. Or was he fifteen. He definitely didn't look that way.

"When did you get that shirt Ella?" He asked. "I haven't seen it before."

"I-

Another boy, with dark hair and brown eyes with olive skin appeared around the corner. These guys wre brothers?

"Ella, your sister is here."

"I'm not-

"Guys! My sister's here! Come down and meet-

She looked straight at me. At first I thought I was just looking at a mirror placed in a hallway. Then I assumed I was having a illusion. But when he illusion poked me in the shoulder, as if to see if I was real, I knew it wasn't a hallucination.

Ella and I were twins?