The first real chapter of Seeker, I'm so excited! :)
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A New Life
"Time to start over again," I sighed. Sometimes I wished I wasn't immortal. If I was human, I would have died years ago. I could be somewhere better by now, rather then this pitiful, repetitive lifestyle. Unlike the rest of my immortal family, I had nothing to live for, nothing to tie me to this earth. I had no reason not to die, and wondered if death were at all possible for me.
"Ang..." Edward cautioned me. I quickly redirected my thoughts to pay attention to Alice and Bella's conversation in the front seat. Edward inclined his head ever so slightly toward Alice. I knew what that meant. Alice had a vision of me trying to kill myself probably.
I swear I'm not going to do that, okay, I thought. I was just wondering.
Edward grimaced.
It's not like I could manage it anyway, I thought privately. I had always been glad that Edward couldn't read my mind. As a Seeker, my thoughts were protected from him, though unlike Bella I could share certain thoughts with him if I chose to.
Alice and Bella ignored our quiet mutterings, though I knew they heard every word we'd said, and guessed the ones we hadn't.
Edward put his arm around my shoulder and held me briefly to his side. I sighed again, only this time as a thank you. Edward was the one I could relate to the most; he understood what I was going through. He had been alone for more than a hundred years before he found Bella. He knew what it was like to be the odd one out. He had been to that place where you gave up on love and just tried to get through life one day at a time.
I also knew that he had found his soul mate, his other half. His success was the only thing that kept my dream from being completely extinguished by misery, the only thing that allowed my hopes to keep glimmering faintly despite the many decades of resignation.
I opened my thoughts to him now, and let my gratitude flow freely from my mind to his. He squeezed me a little tighter to his side, then let go. I looked up at him. He had worry in his eyes, but I could tell he knew how incredibly useless it would be to advise me to just get on with my life. He knew what I needed, and he believed, as did the rest of my family, that I would come across it eventually.
I sighed a third time and leaned back in my seat.
"Angie, stop beating yourself up all the time, please." Bella twisted around in her seat to face me. "I can't stand to see you like this, and it just gets worse all the time."
"Sorry," I mumbled. "I really am trying." I looked down at my designer leather sandals and picked a loose thread from my cotton sundress. I wished for what seemed like the thousandth time that I could imprint like the shifters did. Or even just fall in love like Bella and Edward did. Nothing was that simple for me. I knew I was destined to be alone for the rest of my existence, and nothing would change that.
I felt Edward twitch beside me and mentally shook myself for getting carried away again. To distract myself I looked out the window of Alice's canary yellow Porsche. It was a beautiful sunny day in the city of Houston, Texas. Lucky for the Cullens, I had a spelled lotion that kept their skin from sparkling in the sunlight; now they were able to live wherever they chose, regardless of the weather.
Alice expertly pulled into one of the last parking spots in the school parking lot, next to Rosalie's BMW and Jacob's motorcycle. This was the first school we'd picked that was wealthy enough for any of the Cullens' cars to blend in. The parking lot was full of the logos for Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari, and many foreign companies that I neither knew nor cared about. The courtyard buzzed with crowds of students clad in designer wear, catching up after a summer apart.
I marveled at the simplicity, the complete normality, of the scene. Ordinary humans going about ordinary human activities in an ordinary human way. I could never be a part of a scene like that. I was part of a much more complicated scene; one that included vampires and shape shifters trying to blend in with a bunch of humans.
Even our family story was much more complicated than the one the Cullens had used in Forks: Rosalie and Jasper—the blondes—were siblings; Bella, Emmett, and Alice were siblings, with their dark hair; Edward, Nessie, and I had redder hair so we played siblings; and Jacob, who looked most like me among all the bone pale vampires, was my cousin. Edward and Nessie used my last name, Weber, while the others used Hale and Cullen. Emmett, Rosalie, Jacob, and Jasper played juniors while Edward, Bella, Nessie, Alice, and I pretended to be sophomores.
We stepped out of the car and joined Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper who had taken Rosalie's car. Alice immediately went to hold Jasper's hand. I suppressed an envious sigh. Jacob and Nessie waited for us by the sidewalk; they had taken Jacob's motorcycle. As the nine of us walked up toward the main building to get our schedules, heads turned to stare. I ignored the stares; they were for the Cullens, not me. I looked like a normal human, and I was used to feeling less impressive next to them and their obviously inhuman beauty. As if by some invisible signal, Edward, Emmett, Jasper, and Jacob all tightened the arms they had wrapped around the girls' waists. Jacob even leaned down to kiss Nessie's cheek. I didn't look around to see if anyone noticed that I was companionless.
That bad, huh? I asked Edward in my mind.
He touched my arm. We had discovered that Edward could share thoughts with me as long as we had physical contact, but it only worked with mental powers, like Bella's shield.
Even worse than last time, he thought back, grimacing. You know, they're staring at you too. You're not as average-looking as you think.
I looked up at him, startled. Well, I also happen to be the only one without an extremely intimidating boyfriend hovering over me. They must be terrified of you guys.
They were staring before that, he told me, smug. Besides, I thought you wanted to find someone to love you more than the rest of us can.
If you can honestly tell me that any of them want more than sexual favors, I'd be happy to get to know them, I replied tartly.
Okay, you got me. He smiled slightly. Wait, there might be one now… nope, sorry.
Ha ha. Very amusing. I pulled away from his touch as we entered the attendance office. The secretary was momentarily confused by so many people entering at once. Slightly flustered, she began to hand out schedules. I accidentally got Nessie's and had to switch with her.
As we quickly left the cramped office, I glanced down at my schedule. First period World History, second period Spanish, third period Trigonometry, fourth period Gym, fifth period English, lunch, sixth period Chemistry, and seventh period Band. I knew I wouldn't have any trouble with the courses, but that didn't make going to high school again any more pleasant. I was only here because the Cullens had taken me in after I'd been alone for nearly a hundred years. Often I still felt alone, an outsider. It's not that I wasn't grateful for the Cullens' loving family; I was. Sometimes it may seem like I ignored everything they'd done for me, but it was only because I needed something more, and they all knew that.
I felt Bella's cold arm wrap around my shoulders and squeeze gently. "Just you wait," she said. "I have a good feeling about this place."
"You say that about everywhere we go," I pointed out.
"But this time I'm sure. Something's different. Like something big is going to happen soon." She looked at me straight in the eye. "I can feel it."
I snorted. One thing you learned fast in the Cullen family was never bet against Alice. When she said something was going to happen, it happened. Bella, on the other hand, was a different story. She didn't have any freaky psychic powers, just her intuition and her constant attempts to give me more hope. I appreciated the effort, but all the same I ducked out from under her arm and hurried to first period.
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I walked into English alone. This was the only class I didn't have with any of the rest of my family; I would surely be bored to death by the end of it.
I sat down in a seat in the second row and pulled out my battered old copy of Romeo and Juliet. I had read it so many times that I almost knew the entire book by heart. I loved to read romances; I could escape from my own pitiful world and live someone else's life for a while.
The classroom slowly filled up as I sat there in my own world. I was oblivious to the stares of many of the young men as they passed me by. Then someone interrupted my reading.
"Hello," said a male voice beside me. I looked up. He smiled at me, boldly.
"I'm Jason. Jason Carter." He held out his hand.
"Angela Weber." I smiled and shook his hand.
"You're part of that huge family that just moved here, right? The Cullens?" He saw me frown slightly and added, "News travels fast around here."
"Yes my family is the Cullens," I replied simply.
"No offense, but you look nothing like them," he ventured.
"None of us really look anything alike," I told him. "We're all adopted. Jacob, the big, darker-skinned one, is my cousin, and Edward and Nessie are my siblings. They're the only biological family I have left."
"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. What about the others though?" He was very curious for a human.
"Rosalie and Jasper are twins, and Bella, Emmett, and Alice are also siblings. It's kind of confusing to put in all the details."
"I see. So why did you guys move here?"
"Carlisle, our father for all intents and purposes, got a job with the Regional Hospital so he and Esme moved us all here from Washington." I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable.
Before Jason could answer, probably with another question, the teacher told the class to be quiet and began the lecture. I smiled again and turned to face forward, trying to act like I was interested in the correct use of semicolons. I could feel his slight disappointment rolling off of him, and the intense curiosity that nearly obscured it.
All of a sudden, I was aware of someone staring very, very intently at the back of my head. I resisted the urge to twist around in my seat and put a face to the eyes I could feel boring into my head. I guessed that the stare was coming from roughly two rows behind me and one column to my left. Try as I might I could not ignore that stare. I was distracted all through class; I couldn't think about anything but those eyes that never wavered from the back of my skull.
After what seemed like a thousand lifetimes, the bell rang. Slowly, I gathered my books together, assuring Jason that I could find the cafeteria by myself. I walked out the door, with that unknown stare following me at a slight distance.
When I was roughly fifty yards from the English room I whirled around, and there he stood. The sudden jolt of shock and emotion stunned me for half a second, and then without thinking, I ran.
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I know it's cliffy but how else am I supposed to keep you reading. Please, please, please review! I need support to keep the ideas coming! :)
