*~*~ A/N – You know what? I totally don't care what Bella, Edward and Alice's school schedule was like that second year. I was too lazy to look it up, so I just made up something to move along the story.

Also, I don't really like writing the original characters. I feel like I can't do them the same justice as Stephanie Meyer does. So if they feel off, I'm sorry. I honestly tried. *~*~


KIT:

I sighed as I turned and let go of Damian's jacket. Kari, eh? A possible friend for my brother, or at least that's what I was hoping. He didn't show any sign of fondness for the girl, but it was hard to tell with Damian. He never showed fondness for anyone that wasn't family. Oh well.

I turned towards my gym class, waving good bye to Damian as he made his way to History. Gym. Should be pretty boring. I would have to force myself to play at a level comparable to humans, but I wasn't much of a competitive person to begin with. I was not above losing a few games to keep myself inconspicuous.

I was already late to class, so I didn't hurry as I made my way to the gymnasium. It wouldn't hurt me to be any later, and I was busy lost in thought about what I was going to do about my brother and making his school life more enjoyable. If he decided to quit, I'd have to quit too, and I really didn't want that.

I was toying with the idea of suggesting the wrestling team to him, he'd probably enjoy beating up on humans on a regular basis, but I doubted that would be a good idea. He had enough trouble not killing them when he wasn't allowed to hit them.

I walked into the gym class, oblivious to the people around me as I made my way to the teacher. The class was lined up as the teacher was assigning them into four man teams. I walked up to the teacher. "Sorry I'm late, little family emergency." I apologized.

The teacher nodded absentmindedly, "Yeah yeah, go over there with Swan and the Cullens." he pointed over his shoulder. I nodded to him and turned in that direction. I took one step and froze.

Pale, perfect features and golden eyes stared up at me from the group of three the teacher had indicated. I hesitated, but there was nothing to be done. At least now I might be able to find out more about them.

I finally put a name to what they were as I came closer to them. They were cold, heat sensing was a trait all dragons had, and they had no heart beat. Cold ones. Vampires. I fought back a shudder.

The girl was in more danger than I'd previously thought. Vampires were cold and vicious, only preying on humans, killing was second nature to them. I'd come across them once before, they were slightly more common in the wilderness than people.

I'd been laying out in the sun, dragons greatly enjoyed a good nap in the sun, in human form of course. Always in human form whenever possible my mother taught us. Damian hadn't been with me. A fact he greatly resented. He'd been out with the twins, our younger siblings, getting breakfast.

I almost didn't hear them coming, the sunlight was so very nice, and I never worried about an animal attack. By the time I heard them they were practically on top of me. There were two of them. A male and female.

Before I could react, the male had me pinned to the ground, his teeth coming at my throat. I had no idea exactly how dangerous those teeth were at the time. I could only judge by the insane strength holding me down that allowing him to continue would be a very bad idea.

And then... I fought back. They hadn't been expecting that. I'd shifted into dragon form and tossed the male through three trees before the other one had realized what had happened. The male came back barely even scraped, and the two of them circled me warily.

I realized I was going to have to use more than strength to defeat them. I shifted back into my more maneuverable half dragon form. Dragon form was strong, but awkward when fighting small and fast enemies. My brother favored fighting in a form that mixed the advantages of both human and dragon. We were a little weaker, and our scales not as tough, but we were fast, and agile. You didn't have to be strong if you knew how to apply force properly. And physics was always one of my families favorite subjects.

My brother and I were especially into the physical application of it. I was suddenly glad for those long hours I'd spent watching him experiment with the half dragon form, and after a while copying and eventually joining him. We sparred often, he was always better than me, but I had the advantage because he would never go all out on me.

These enemies wouldn't hold back. I didn't either.

When I arrived home, Damian had been livid. I had a broken arm, and was bruised and battered all over. He demanded I take him back to where I had literally torn the monsters to pieces. When we got there, the pieces were moving... reassembling themselves.

Damian took less time than I did to tear them into pieces again, they still didn't stop moving. So as a last effort, I breathed fire on them. I didn't breathe fire often, it was a fire hazard living in the wilderness; but it seemed to do the trick. Damian sent me home to rest while he took care of scattering the ashes. He didn't come back until the next morning to report that they were truly dead.

I couldn't help but shiver at the memory. However, one thing bothered me. Those vampires had had blood red eyes. Not golden ones. I pondered the implications of this as I took a seat on the floor as far as I could politely manage from them.

The boy smiled at me warmly. "Hello, my name is Edward." His voice sent shivers down my spine. So disarmingly sweet. A voice a human would never expect to be a killer. I didn't think I'd made my reaction visible, but there was a slight tightening to his smile that made me make a mental note to hide it better.

I didn't smile back as I replied. "My name is Kit." I carefully kept my gaze to his face as I ran through a possibility of ways to separate him from the human girl he was sitting next to. His next meal no doubt, but not if I could help it. If I could just...

He laughed, "She's so perceptive, Alice. It's almost like she can read my mind." He winked at the other predator girl as he reached over and pulled the human girl closer to him. I tensed, ready to intervene, a low growl, but he held up his hand defensively.

"Wait." He spoke softly, he was now speaking too quietly for anyone nearby to hear. "I promise no harm will come to Bella, and I'm not making her do anything she doesn't want to do. I can see that words are useless on you; and since you're so perceptive, I'll just show you. I haven't been able to hide anything from you yet, so let's not pretend and be honest with each other."

The human, Bella, glanced between me and Edward catching onto what he was saying. She closed the distance between herself and the vampire, wrapping her arms around his waste and leaning against his shoulder. I froze in place. I wanted to stop her, to scream at her for being so stupid, but it wasn't my place. She smiled at me, "Don't worry, Edward and Alice won't hurt me."

My eyes narrowed. "You don't know that."

"Yes, I do." Bella insisted stubbornly. Edward chuckled.

"I've been trying to tell her that myself." He told me sighing. "She does know though, about Alice and me."

I didn't reply as I watched the two of them. It was disturbing. There was no malice in his actions as he took her hand in his and intertwined their fingers. She blushed slightly, but didn't shy away when he leaned forward to kiss her softly on the forehead. It was all very unsettling to my stomach, and then I realized why.

They reminded me of my parents. I looked away and fought the urge to gag. Edward laughed, and I turned to glare at him. My parents were in a similar situation as they. My mother was a dragon, and my father a human. It wasn't unusual for dragons to take humans as mates, according to my mother. It was actually the natural way of things. The dragon would meet a human who utterly captured their attention, they would devote themselves to them.

Dragons were mysterious creatures that influenced the world and people around them in weird ways. I'd never seen myself do it personally, but my mother did it all the time. Just by being around my mother, my father kept his youth, a normal human would have died long ago.

I tried to shove the mental images of my parents being lovey dovey out of my head. It was sick, and so very very wrong.

"I think she understands now." Edward spoke trying, but not very hard, to keep the amusement out of his voice.

I made a face at him. "And I'm just supposed expect this love of yours to absolve you of murder every time you eat?" I growled.

His face turned serious, "You were wondering about our golden eyes earlier." He spoke quietly. "Why they weren't red like the... the others."

I stayed quiet, my eyes narrowing at his words. There was something suspicious about them, I couldn't quite put my finger on. He winced, and that seemed to spark something as well.

He continued his speech. "The golden eyes are because we don't feed on human blood. It's not quite the same, animal blood, but it does seem to satiate our thirst enough for us to be safe... relatively... around humans."

I turned his words over in my head, there was something he was hiding from me, but his words were true. They didn't kill humans. How interesting. I wondered if my mother knew about these human-safe vampires. Probably. Actually, now that I thought about it, they were probably the whole reason she'd decided to move here.

"Now that we're being honest..." Edward started, getting my attention. "We also have a few questions to ask you about your family."

I frowned. "...such as?"

"We know what you are. What we'd like to know is why you're here?"

"You...know?" I asked surprised. The one thing I was confident in, was my ability to seem human. Even if I was a little off he shouldn't immediately identify me for what I was. Dragons were large flying fire-breathing lizards of legend. Nothing I had done would lead to that conclusion.

Edward nodded, "Yes, I've never met a dragon before. I doubt even Carlisle has."

I swallowed, "Uh, that's not... I'm not..." I groaned as I placed my head in my hands, "Mom's going to kill me..." Keeping our existence secret was the number one priority of all dragons. To have messed up so much, to not even realize I'd revealed the secret? This was unacceptable. Mom was right, I wasn't ready to intermingle with humans. How many others knew? Did the humans? Did they even suspect? What did I do wrong?

"Wait, don't blame yourself. You didn't do anything wrong." Edward spoke concerned. "If I'd had known your secret meant that much to you I'd have kept it to myself. It's not your fault."

"How is it not my fault?" I demanded. He shouldn't even have been able to figure it out if he had had a hundred years to study my every action and time to research it; let alone figure it out from one brief conversation!

He hesitated seeming to debate something in his head then sighed, "Well, I did say we were going to be honest. It's not your fault I can read minds." he explained. I froze. He eyed me warily.

"Oh." I said simply, then comprehension came. "Ooooh!" His expression changes while I thought over his responses. How he knew... everything.

I scowled. "That's dirty."

He grimaced, "It's not something I can turn off, or control. It just happens." Then he added as I thought it over, "No, not all vampires can, just me, and one other that I know of. His power works differently though."

I struggled with a good way to respond to that but found it difficult. "I... I don't like having you in my head." I stated finally.

"Most people don't." He agreed. "Now, my question? Why you and your family are here?" He prompted.

"Wouldn't you already know?" I glared at him.

"No, you haven't thought it yet. I can only read what you're currently thinking."

Now that was interesting. So I had to think it for him to know it? I'd certainly keep that in mind. "I haven't thought it because I don't really know. Only my mother knows why we really do anything. I know why I'M here though." I didn't explain further, he already knew my answer anyways and I didn't like saying it out loud. It was rather childish and embarrassing.

"Perhaps our families should meet? I'd hate to think what would happen if your brother accidentally stumbled across one of us without warning first." Edward suggested.

"Yeah, that would be bad. Very bad." I agreed, "Meeting would be a good idea. As soon as possible. I'll introduce you to my brother as soon as class is over so he won't be surprised. My mother was probably planning on a meeting anyways."

"Hey, you kids pay attention!" The teacher shouted catching me by surprise. I'd almost forgotten we were in the middle of class.

"Certainly. We'll be sure to bring proper gym attire to class tomorrow." Edward spoke looking up at the teacher. The teacher stared at him for a moment before moving on and carrying on his lecture on the rules of gym.

I smiled, amused as we stayed quiet through the rest of gym class. It was mostly a lecture, and some jogging afterwords. We ran at a pace that was comfortable to Bella even though she tried to insist that we didn't have to wait for her. It's not like we could have gone at our own pace, so matching hers was no big deal. Besides, jogging with Bella was far more entertaining than jogging normally was. She kept tripping, Edward would always catch her arm and steady her before she fell, and it was interesting to see all the different ways a human could trip.

I wondered if I should start tripping to look more human. Perhaps, since it worked so well on Edward's attention, tripping would get me more attention from the male population. It might be worth the effort. If I could convince Damian to not kill him I'd like to try to have a boyfriend at least once. I noticed Edward was staring at me amused and I remembered he could read my thoughts. I smiled at him humorously.

"I'd never thought of that." He replied smiling as he glanced down at Bella, "You wouldn't happen to be tripping on purpose as an excuse for me to touch you, would you?" He asked with mock severity.

"No!" She protested blushing as her eyes widened and she tried to move so she was jogging farther from him but tripped in the process. Edward laughed as he stepped over and caught her before she could land on her face.

"Well it can't be helped, since you want me to hold you I'll just have to comply." He picked her up and proceeded to carry her.

"No! Stop! Put me down, Edward!" Bella protested loudly, trying futilely to squirm out of his arms.

I watched them amused, glancing at Alice who was beside me. "Are they always like this?"

"They're worse when they think no one can see." She replied her eyes dancing with amusement.

As gym was coming to an end, I quickly mapped out the way to our home for Edward in my head. We had two homes, one a house just outside of town, another a cave high in the mountains. We had a house because places like school and such required you to have an address. My father stayed at the house most of the time while the rest of us spent most of our time in the cave. It was a fairly quick flight between the two so we could get from one to the other without much issue. I showed him both, but arranged to meet at the cave home. It would be easier to have a proper meeting if there were less a chance of intrusion.