Smoke and Mirrors:
Sunny Slaughter had been in Forks for less than a year and she was pleasantly surprised by the fact that she actually liked the small town. She liked the hospitality, the lower cost of living, how she easily stayed informed and that there was less traffic. Everything was finally falling into place until a new family moved to town and put Sunny's life at jeopardy after someone discovered a secret that wasn't theirs to tell.
Why am I uploading another story, you might ask? Well, it's because I'm an impatient person. That's it. I'm just shitty at waiting.
This is a F/M/F story. This thought literally just hit me, because while I have never read Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, I have heard of Royal Hale. So I thought it would be cool to actually give Rosalie a twin, cause, c'mon, two extremely hot Hale siblings in one story? Uh, yes, please, with a side of another extra hot character. So, yes, while this is a Rosalie/OC/Royal story, there will be no incest! I just want to make that perfectly clear right now. Yet, who knows? I have a crazy mind that likes to walk on the wild (insane) side, and so do some of my readers and reviewers. Just remember that this is fanfiction.
And for those of you who take this website a little too seriously with keeping things canon, let me just remind you what fiction means. Fiction—literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people. Invention or fabrication as opposed to fact. Let's all take a second to thank Google.
And this story does contain some Rosalie/OFC elements, so for all of those who've read my other fem/fem story, repeat after me: This story does involve female on female action and romance. So if that's not your kind of thing, or it goes against anything you believe, please leave now. Any comments that I think are rude will be deleted and you will be reported. (That also applies for the polyamorous relationship aspect of the story).
Annnnnnd that's all, folks. Enjoy the story.
*More information, along with credits and disclaimers, can be found below.
Chapter 1:
Forks, Washington
September, 2002
You invite the new girl to the party. That way you can get all the juicy gossip about her. That was the basic rule.
Sunny was sitting in English class, listening to two brunettes plan a party for the weekend. She couldn't help but hear them. They sat directly in front her, chatting through the entire half hour. The teacher's soft, apologetic voice was nothing compared to the excited whispers of the teenaged girl's. They had turned around immediately once they had taken their seats, eyeing Sunny like she was some sort of exotic animal, but at the same time sizing her up, trying to determine if she was a threat to their beauty and popularity. After they saw whatever it was they liked, they had wasted no time in introducing themselves (Sunny had already forgotten—she was terrible with names) and gave her an invitation to their party. She accepted the piece of paper nicely, but it only ended up getting crumbled into a ball and shoved into the bottom of her bag.
She didn't care for parties. The last one she had attended had been a disaster.
She was full of contradictory feelings, though. A part of her wanted to be as far away from the two girls as possible. She wanted them to see her as a witch—a freak—and hoped that they would never talk to her again because bad things always happened when people stuck around her for too long. At the same time there was a terrible longing inside of her. Like she wanted to be accepted. Long before Forks, and before the Institute, Sunny remembered life at her old school and how much she wanted to fit in. She just wanted people to let her in. She wanted a place of her own that didn't involve her being the freak. All she had wanted was friends and people to see her for who she actually was; not for the odd things that she could do.
But that would never happen. The two girls would quickly learn that being associated with Sunny would tarnish their reputation. No one would want the freak at their party. And Sunny, after pushing everyone away, would make sure that everyone thought she didn't want to go in the first place.
And she forced herself not to care. It was just how it was supposed to go. It was her second to the last year of high school. She could do it. Then, after graduation, she would finally be on her own and live her life in comfortable bliss. She would move on to another town, maybe even to another country, and start all over.
But that was another problem, of course. Starting over meant going through the same old process once again. She would have to push people away, but selfishly use those who would be able to sustain her needs until they were met, and then she would leave them high and dry. Out of the blue she would stop responding to their phone calls and ignore them if she ever saw them out in public. She would always have to be the bitch to save them from herself.
There was no escape. Maybe college would've been different, but that door had closed sometime ago. She had screwed up her scholarship, and with her mysterious disappearance and even more mysterious return, no college would ever dare to even look at her forms. Besides, it was best if she stayed away from large crowds—and she didn't have that type of money. She could make due without college. Maybe she would enroll into a trade school one day.
For the first time in a long time, the years stretched out for Sunny; but it all seemed as bleak and dull as the little town she was currently residing in. It was endless loneliness, and endless hours of listening to people make plans that didn't involve her. Endless seclusion. Endless aching and wishing that she could control the minds of the people around her and make them see that she wasn't a freak.
All the while she was thinking, she was unconsciously fixating on the different energies that were coursing through the room. She didn't know what she was doing at first. Her body was acting on its own—her brain hadn't been involved at all. The person next to her gripped the edge of the table, attempting to steady their self as they closed their eyes to find that inner balance.
Sunny quickly took control and drew back.
It was getting worse. She had almost no control over her body anymore. When she was hungry, and whether she knew it or not, her energy would attach itself to others like some sort of parasite.
And the worst part about it was that she craved it. Just like an addict trying to find their next hit, Sunny's body craved auric energy, but there was one major difference—Sunny needed to feed off of others to survive. Death wasn't in the cards for her just yet.
As her essence snapped back and greedily gave her what she needed, Sunny felt like she was going down for the count. It was like she was encompassing the person's emotions. The good, the bad, and everything in between—she hated that feeling. It was a familiar one, though. And it happened every time she unconsciously fed off of people, and it was the reason why people considered her a freak.
She had an effect on people.
And the vibes were unsettling.
She took complete control of herself with a jerk. The twisting ball in the pit of her stomach felt sickening.
She didn't want to affect anyone because it was dangerous. If the person's aura was sweet enough—with just the right mixture of green and gold, and black and purple—Sunny could become addicted. Then her energy would seek out that person and feed off of them until there was nothing left to take...until that host was dead.
A repeat of her childhood would devastate her.
But she could feel her body vibrating, wanting more of the energy around her.
Albeit the feeling of tiredness and boredom drenched the room, majority of the people were radiating positive energy. And Sunny could feel her body fighting for control so it could take more and more until it was satisfied.
Energy was what made up the existence of everything in life and it came in waves that flowed through the universe. Everyone gave out certain vibrational frequencies, which was what attracted the many events that occurred in one's day-to-day life. Energy came in many different colors and forms, and every emotion that was created gave out a specific type of energy that was different from the other types created.
And then there was positive energy. Creating a positive emotion in someone by doing something nice for the person was one way to get positive energy forming. When you create a positive emotion in someone, you were allowing the person you were creating that emotion with, to release positive energy which came in the colors of yellows, pinks, oranges, purples, greens, etc. It varied with the person and the positive emotion being felt. That was the kind of energy you wanted to create. While it did take longer and more work to create that kind of energy, the results in the long run were much more rewarding and you would feel better physically.
And positive energy was addicting. When feeding off the positive energy created, Sunny felt the same positive emotions of that person she was feeding off of. Sunny was naturally drawn towards that type of energy without even trying half of the time. It made her feel good physically in the sense that she could think clearer, she was less prone to becoming ill, she felt good about herself, and it made taking energy ten times easier than it would be if she were to choose to go take the alternative route of creating negative energy in others and in her environment.
Taking energy through negative emotions was the fastest and easiest ways to feed off of energy, but it was also dangerous to Sunny and dangerous to those she were feeding off of.
Frustration and anger were easier to get a hold of because she could take their energy immediately and produce large results by continuing to push that person's buttons. But the consequences of taking energy in that manner could result in many ways that were not so pleasant. It made her feel ill, and depressed, and even more temperamental than she already was.
So the upside was that she could replenish her energy faster, but the downside was that it diminished just as fast as well.
It wasn't enough, though.
It never was.
Her body constantly needed to feed; to suck the life force right out everyone she came in contact with and she was tired. It was the most terrible part of Sunny's ability. She didn't mind seeing people's auras or knowing what they were feeling. It was almost sickening to have a parasitic mindset.
But it was how she survived.
Right now, she couldn't do anything. Getting up in the middle of class would only draw even more attention to herself, and that was the last thing she wanted. Then again, maybe being known as the new girl who had randomly left the classroom in a hurry wasn't such a bad idea. It would certainly get people off her case quicker.
Forks was still too much of a small town, though. Sometimes large cities were the best places to live because there were just too many people. But laying low in a small town was the better way to go at the moment. And Sunny didn't think she was ready to face such a large quantity of people again so soon. She needed time to compose herself.
Sunny rolled her eyes. Her life was such a sob story, it was nauseating. Since when had she allowed herself to feel sorry for the shitty hand she had been dealt? She rolled with punches. She had ever since her mother died. Since then, Sunny learned that she had to keep getting up or she'd become a doormat.
A disturbance drew Sunny out of her head. The teacher's voice was soft and soothing—so much so that one could actually fall asleep to it.
An Asian kid brought in a pink slip of paper.
Sunny recognized the boy. He had shoved his camera in her face. She was apparently going to be on the front of the school's paper.
The teacher took the slip and looked up until her eyes found Sunny.
"Ms. Slaughter, the principal would like to see you."
Sunny closed her notebook that was still nothing but empty pages. She shoved it into her bag and kept her back straight. Her head was held high and she walked out the front door with confidence. She looked down at the slip and took notice that her presence was demanded immediately.
"Is she already in trouble?" A snide voice whispered. Suddenly, the room was like a wildfire as speculations were thrown about.
Sunny didn't care, though. She would let them think what they wanted. It was one of the easiest ways to get them off her back. She went out of the door with the Asian kid, glad that he had ditched the camera.
But was she really in trouble? Probably. Her record was messy at best even without her disappearing act. She had been a difficult child, that she would admit. Children were so much more open to the world, and mixed with her ability to feed off of others energy, Sunny had been a rollercoaster of emotions. Doctors had said that she had been showing signs of being a manic bipolar, but it hadn't been until a renown psychic had determined that Sunny was telepathic. And that was when everything had started to make sense.
But that had also made her a murder.
"What did you do?" The Asian kid asked as they reached the office. "I mean...I doubt that you're in trouble. He probably just wants to talk to you."
Sunny looked at the boy from the corner of her eyes. He was okay looking she supposed. A lot of shiny black hair, dark slanted eyes, but they were soft—almost like Lewis.
Sunny got rid of that thought as soon as it came. Lewis was miles away living his life with the People of the Crystal, helping others like them. She didn't want to disturb him.
But the boy definitely wasn't Lewis because he would had never looked at Sunny the way the boy was. She had brown, wavy hair that stopped a few inches above her shoulders and was parted into free, wavy bangs. She also had very large honey golden brown eyes and tanned, smooth skin.
She was certainly her mother's child. Her father had blond hair and sea blue eyes. He was also pale and fair skinned. Her mother had been the brunette with dark chocolate eyes and skin the color of autumn. Her mother had been beautiful, and according to everyone who had once known her, Sunny looked like her carbon copy.
She had perfected her father's deathly stare, though. And she turned it on the boy.
He went white.
The typical emotions of nervousness, curiosity and underlying caution came to her. It was how people usually responded when Sunny used that stare. Her father had only taught her it so she could ward off boys, but she used it on everyone.
She missed her father terribly. He had always been the only person who believed in her. He use to say that what she had was a gift given to her by faeries. But people said otherwise. She had heard it all ever since she was young—she had the power of the devil. She could do things that only demons would do.
So sometimes, like now, Sunny used her abilities to her advantage. She stared at the Asian kid until she properly manipulated his nervousness. He gave an awkward chuckle and stepped back. Sunny looked away and walked into the office.
A triumph was a triumph in Sunny's eyes, no matter what means she used to win. It hurt that she had to make people weary of her, but she knew that it would end up saving a lot of people in the long run.
The lady at the front desk pointed towards the principal's office and Sunny prepared herself for the examination she was about to undergo.
Mr. Greene was a plump man, but rather short. Sunny gathered the impression that he suffered from short man syndrome.
He looked up. "Ms. Slaughter, please, have a seat."
Sunny did as she was told and glanced around the office. His diplomas were hung up on the wall behind him and she assumed that the picture frames on his desk were filled with smiling faces of his family. The room itself was stuffy and dull, lacking character and emotion. She didn't feel all too welcomed and she gathered that he didn't really care how she felt in his presence.
"How is your first day going so far?"
Sunny blinked. "Just fine. Why am I here?"
She highly doubted that he had pulled her out of class just to have a little casual chit chat.
And Mr. Greene didn't seem to have a problem with her straightforwardness. "I've been looking over your file, Ms. Slaughter, and quite frankly, your past is very concerning."
So she was in trouble, kind of. But he was just now getting around to her file? She sat up straight in her chair like her father had taught her. Good posture was important.
"You have my condolences," he started off. "No one should lose their mother so young." Sunny nodded her head in appreciation. "I can overlook your behavior as a juvenile, but I'm rather concerned about what happened when you disappeared."
Of course he was. Everyone wanted to know what really happened to her, and only her father knew the truth.
"With all due respect, sir, I'd rather not talk about it."
It was easy to remember what happened to her, but that didn't mean she wanted to relive it. If she had it her way, she would've erased those experiences from her memory.
"You went to an institute," Mr. Greene said, ignoring Sunny. "Can you tell me what for?"
It suddenly dawned on Sunny what the principal was hinting at. She bit back a smile.
"It was an institute for higher learning," Sunny said, and it wasn't a complete lie. "It was a place for those who excelled at things other than educational purposes."
Mr. Greene seemed to be put at ease that he hadn't just accepted a crazy person into his school, but Sunny's words still had him confused. "And what do you mean by that?"
"It was your regular vision screening. They showed everyone in the room letters and we had to write them down. The letters got smaller and smaller until no one could see them anymore. Except for me."
Mr. Greene leaned forward. "What did you do?"
"I kept writing."
"And what does that mean? You've got good eyesight?"
Sunny couldn't help but laugh. "No, um—for the last twenty frames the letters hadn't been there. But I still saw letters."
"How is that possible?"
"I was seeing letters, just not with my eyes."
The room was perfectly silent.
Sunny's cool exterior didn't show it, but her heart was erratically beating in her chest.
"There was someone in the room next door," Sunny said. "He was looking at the chart. That's how I still saw the letters. I saw them through his eyes."
"That's impossible," Mr. Greene said faintly.
"It's not, actually." Sunny remembered what Joyce had told her. "It's called remote viewing. It's the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target, purportedly using extrasensory perception or "sensing" with the mind."
"So you're—what? Psychic?"
"Yes," Sunny said. There was no pride in her voice, though. "If I tried hard enough I could read your thoughts, but that takes a lot out of me. I would definitely need to feed then."
Mr. Greene's eyebrows rose to his receding hairline.
"Feed?"
Sunny grimaced at her slip up. "There's more than just one psychic ability, Mr. Greene. I have friends who all do different things. One has premonitions, another can heal by using life energy; one can communicate with animals and control them, and another can move objects with his mind."
Mr. Greene gazed at Sunny intently with those light eyes of his. "What can you do?"
Sunny looked down at her hands in her lap. She twisted her fingers together and sucked on her teeth. She had never been so open and honest to a normal stranger before. "They call me and another likewise psychic vampires. I'm a telepath, and when I use my power on minds that are weaker than mine, I drain those people of their life energy."
"You kill people?" A rush of emotions had Mr. Greene itching to get out of his seat.
Sunny shook her head and quickly spoke. "No, I don't kill people, Mr. Greene, but there have been recorded incidents of that happening with others like me." She had left out the part of needing to drain people of their energy to survive.
"I first discovered my ability when I was little girl," Sunny continued, but she didn't go into great detail. "I was always a sensitive child and I would easily take on the strongest emotion in the room."
Her ability had distracted her from doing well in school, but her father could do nothing but hire her a tutor after hours. He worked full time and since he had been their only source of income he couldn't withdraw her from school and teach her at home. Sunny had to work extra harder just to keep up with even the most laziest people in her classes, and she quickly developed temperament issues not only because of what she could do, but because peers and teachers alike started to treat her like an invalid. And from her anger came the need to drain people.
And she was always angry. At herself, at other people, at the world and everything in between.
"That's why you've developed something of an attitude problem," Mr. Greene added softly. He wasn't scared of her, which Sunny was thankful for, just very curious and slightly unnerved. But unnerved was good. It was a whole lot better than fear. "You're naturally rebellious."
Sunny glared at the floor. People didn't like rambunctious young ladies. It made them come across as bitches. "So you know all about me," she said. "I'm a freak and I've got an attitude problem. So what? Are you going to kick me out, or turn me over to the government?"
"You are not a freak," Mr. Greene all but snapped. Sunny was shocked. "So you've got an attitude. Plenty of people your age have bad attitudes. I'm a religious man, Ms. Slaughter, and I firmly believe that God doesn't put anything in our path that we can't overcome. And out of all the people in the world who could've had what you can do, he decided that you were the only one who could handle it. It's clear that you don't see it that way, but you've got a gift, an amazing gift. Why, it could be used for so much good. You're unusually wonderful, Ms. Slaughter."
In Sunny's experiences, unusual was never put in the same sentence as wonderful. It normally wasn't a good thing.
"People can only dream of doing what you can that they make movies about it," Mr. Greene said. "I highly doubt that there are many of you out there."
"There's only ten in the United States," Sunny admitted. It had actually been twelve, but Sasha and Parté were no longer aware or human-like.
"Only ten?" Mr. Greene asked in astonishment.
"Ten high schoolers. Ten people just like me. We have different abilities, though, so no two people can do the same thing no matter how similar they might be." While Sunny and one other boy had the same issue of draining people's life energy, only Sunny could read other people's minds if she concentrated hard enough. "The institute was supposed to help us control and learn more about what we could do. But they had just wanted to experiment on us."
"They experimented on you?" Mr. Greene looked at her in alarm.
"Experiment is a strong word. They used us." Among other things that she wouldn't be disclosing anytime soon. "We were tested on our psychic abilities, but we were warned from the start that the Institute was dangerous, and even the housekeeper told us to get out as soon as possible, and that was before she went into coma." Sunny paused and fidgeted in her seat. She was building up to something big. "We obviously became suspicious and began to believe the warnings about the Institute. We investigated and found a secret passageway that contained plans to turn us into psychic weapons to sell to major corporations, and a file about a previous project where other psychics had been tested on and were 'terminated'."
"Terminated?"
"They had participated in the previous project, but their powers weren't strong enough to withstand it. Majority of them went insane, but some were reduced to the point of mental retardation."
Or something much worse.
But Sunny shrugged it off. Neither she nor the others had the ability to rewind time and undo the damage that had been done.
Mr. Greene shook his head. "Why would you ever agree to go in the first place?"
"There were benefits, too. We were sent to one of the best schools in San Carlos to continue our education, and they would do testing every afternoon for an hour or two a day. The real deal breaker was that once we had all graduated from high school, we would all get our own scholarship to the college of our choice. It was a very generous amount."
"Playing on your future like that was smart," Mr. Greene said. He sneered at the thought, though. "Smart, but also despicable."
Sunny couldn't stop the smile tugging at her lips. She had Mr. Greene all wrong. He was a kind man who cared, you just had to give him the chance.
"Seeing six zeros wasn't all too bad, though," she said jokingly with a sliver of a smile. "But we were helping science move forward. We were breaking down the walls, and then we could start all over. Build ourselves new lives. We could finally go to school without anyone knowing who we were and just be ordinary."
That was all they had ever wanted. And while they grass didn't look greener, and it wasn't all spectacular from what they saw, it beat being known as the town freak. Anything was better than being that.
Mr. Greene smiled. "I'm glad to say that you are a Spartan, Ms. Slaughter."
"Don't be," Sunny said weakly. "I'll cause problems soon enough."
Mr. Greene looked at her, startled.
"Attitude issues," Sunny said as a reminder. It would be a matter of time until she being sent to the office every few weeks.
"Ah, about that," Mr. Greene started. He opened his drawer and dug through it to hand her a piece of paper that was in a folder. "What do you think of counselors?"
Sunny looked over the paper. "That they're full of crock shit."
Mr. Greene failed miserably at reprimanding her about her language because of that twinkle in his eyes. "Don't you want to work on your anger issues?"
Didn't she? Only when she was fighting with her stepmother and her father would give her a disappointingly heartbreaking look that made her want to punch the woman in the face. But she would never do that. She had dreamed of it, but her father would probably have a heart attack by that point.
She never thought of seeing a counselor, though. She had been to sessions for anger management classes where she had to sit in a circle with other people who all would take turns and share what led them there, but those classes never helped. Which was a bummer because they were either cheap or free, and she could keep it anonymous. That way her father never had to find out, but it was different with a counselor. She was a minor, she'd have to get permission from her parent or legal guardian….
Sunny sighed loudly.
Her father would think the worst and would be calling her phone every minute of the day. Her legal guardianship was her aunt and uncle, and the latter would be against the notion entirely. He didn't trust shrinks and he wouldn't want the town to know that there was something wrong with his niece.
"It's just my dad and uncle. Ever since the Institute, they've been less trusting of who they let get into my mind."
Mr. Greene looked sympathetic. While he didn't know Sunny's father, he was well acquainted with her uncle. The man had been brilliant, a philosophy professor who had written books and made it on the New York Times bestsellers list. But that all changed when he discovered that his wife couldn't have children. That's when he had gotten dull. He still taught at the local community college, but he wasn't the same person he had been fifteen years ago. It also turned him into a hard man, almost militaristic in a sense of that he didn't take crap from anyone and he despised bullshitters. He told people the God's honest truth and he expected the same in return. But it shouldn't have came as a surprise that he would be protective of his only niece. He absolutely adored Sunny, no matter how much of a hard ass he really was. And Sunny knew that he came from a place of love; he just showed it in his own special way.
And if he didn't want her to see a counselor, than she wouldn't see one. She valued his opinion a lot.
"It won't happen," she said.
Mr. Greene was looking down at his stubby hands that were folded together. "Sunny, if this were to help you, don't you think they'd want you to go? To better yourself?"
Well, when it was put that way, yeah. But Sunny still shook her head. Now her mind was filling up with doubt.
She felt herself losing control.
"Wouldn't you like not to be so angry all the time?"
Sunny looked at him.
The possibility of not being angry every waking second never occurred to her. Anger had always been apart of her and she couldn't help it when it all became too much to handle. She never realized how bad it was until it was over.
"I think you can do it," Mr. Greene said with all the confidence in the world. "And I wouldn't send you to just any counselor."
Sunny opened her mouth, but a terrible noise from the hallway startled them.
It was a crashing and a snapping and a God awful scream all in one. And it was a loud noise, so loud that the screams could still be heard over the frantic voices.
Sunny and Mr. Greene jumped up, and the round principal made it to the door first. He rushed out of the office into the hallway with Sunny following.
People were running towards the main stairwell, ignoring the teachers that were trying to hold them back. Sunny was almost trampled on by a herd of freshmen. The lights were flickering above them and all Sunny could see were the shadows of people who crowded around the bottom of the stairs. She followed behind Mr. Greene as he shoved his way through the crowd of teenagers.
A student was laying on the bottom of the steps. Their leg was facing the wrong way, the knee was touching the floor and the heel of their foot was pointed up towards the ceiling in an awkward, crooked position. It looked as if someone had twisted the person's leg flawlessly. Sunny recognized the person; it was the tall girl who had sat next to her in English, the one she had been accidentally feeding off of.
The girl's glasses had been knocked off her face, and no doubt stamped on by the students who had rushed to her aid. She was still on the ground, trying to clutch her leg, but it was too painful. Her screams only seemed to get louder and Sunny got a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach.
A junior tugged at Mr. Greene's arm. "I saw everything, Mr. Greene! Angela was just walking down the steps and then she just fainted and….it all happened so fast! No one could catch her."
"That's her bone sticking out," Mr. Greene inhaled sharply. "It's broken in half. Don't move her yet! Don't move her!" The principal continued to bark out orders, but Sunny wasn't listening.
She was staring at the girl, feeling her auric energy. She hadn't tasted such sweet energy since she had accidentally feed off of a child—it was unusually kind for a teenager.
People around her were still yelling, running. Sunny hardly noticed them. She didn't even know when the ambulance had shown up. She didn't hear the sirens.
All she could do was stare at the girl. It was Sunny's fault. She felt it in her gut. There was no coincidence that Sunny had been attracted to the girl's life energy, and the second she had gotten antsy the girl fainted out of the blue. She wasn't buying it and she wouldn't let herself believe that because this was what she was afraid of.
Even now, with her essence filled with unbearable pain, it was still sweet. It was calling out to Sunny like a moth to a flame, and the girl's vulnerable state only made it harder to resist. But Sunny shook her head and grounded her teeth together. She wouldn't give in, she couldn't. The girl's life depended on it.
"Please, no," Sunny whispered. She clenched her first together. Somebody steadied her.
Sirens were still wailing in the background. The paramedics had pushed their way towards the girl and were now placing her on the stretcher as gently as possible.
She knew this would happen. The poor girl's kind soul was the reason she was in such pain. Why couldn't Sunny control it? Why hadn't she realized what she was doing? Why couldn't she just see and feel everyone's aura instead of feeding, and draining, and harming and almost killing people? How could her ability be seen as a gift at all when all it did was cause pain, so much fucking pain….?
"Do you need to sit down?" The person who had steadied Sunny was Mr. Greene. She hadn't seen him move towards her.
He noticed that Sunny was shivering, and he knew that it wasn't from the cold. Her breathing was labored and she started to draw blood from her palms.
"Did you mean it, about not sending me to just any counselor?" Sunny couldn't bring herself to look away from the damage she had caused.
Mr. Greene watched as the paramedics rolled Angela out of the building. He looked back at Sunny. "Yes, I meant it."
"You have to promise that they're top notch."
Mr. Greene looked at her, the way a parent looked at a scared child. "I promise he'll try, Sunny."
"Then I'll do it. My dad and uncle will just have to deal with it."
"I'm glad," Mr. Greene said softly. He guided her towards the office doors. "Wait in my office. I want to make sure that Angela is in good hands, and then we'll look over the paper and discuss it."
~Page Break~
That night, Sunny had an odd vivid dream. She was standing in a clearing, everything was covered in snow. The sky above her was clear, not a single cloud in the crystal blue oasis. There were red, milky eyes staring at her and Sunny could almost feel the intensity of them, the chill that ran down her spine.
From behind her, someone called her name when she tentatively placed her hand into cold, marble ones. She imagined that she was making a deal with the devil himself. But when she turned around to see who had called her, the dream had ended.
Information/Credits/Disclaimers:
—All characters and events belong to Stephenie Meyer and to the publisher, Little, Brown and Company. Events from the movie(s) belong to the production and distribution companies.
—Information about auric energy came from The Mind Unleashed (Beta) and the article Psychic Vampires and the Use of Etheric Energy.
—Lewis, Joyce, Sasha, Parté, the Institute and the People of the Crystal are all characters and a place from L. J. Smith's Dark Visions Trilogy. It was published in 1994–1995 by Simon & Schuster.
—This will not be a crossover, but L. J. Smith's characters will make an appearance from time to time.
—Polyamory means having multiple loving relationships, usually, but not always sexual. Unlike polygamy, people in polyamorous relationships stress the importance of open communication and equal relationships between partners whether male or female. Usually all parties involved know about the other partners and choose to be in those relationships. (Source: Mossie Black. ).
—This chapter was not overlooked by a beta.
If you liked this chapter, please favorite this story and review. It would be very helpful to get the next chapter going.
Until next time.
