"Hey, Lanie! We we're thinking about taking you and Bella out to eat after the game. Where would you want to go?" Emmett asked us when we had walked up.

Oh, cool! My parents almost never went out to eat. Where should I pick? Suddenly realizing I didn't know any restaurants around here, I asked him. "Well, if where would you go to eat, if you could go anywhere?"

An evil grin spread across his face and he answered bluntly, "A blood bank."

I thought about that for a half a second and then started shouting in disgust, "EWWW! Emmett, that so gross!" I started gagging. I don't know why he thought that was funny!

"You any good at baseball, Lanie?" Jasper asked me, walking up to us and expertly twirling a bat.

"Oh, yeah, I sure am. I'm an old pro!" I told him, not wanting them to know I've almost never played before. "I've had many many years of experience."

"Oh, OK. We'll try to keep up." Jasper said, with a smirk.

"How many years of experience could you have? You're only twelve." Emmett said, cocky-eyed.

I chose to ignore that comment, stuck my nose up in the air proudly and said to them both, "Just wait til you watch me serve a touchdown, you'll see."

They both started chuckled at my ignorant comment. "Do you want me to give you some pointers before the game?" Jasper asked."Ya know, from one "old pro" to another?"

"OK," I said. "That could be interesting, but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"

Jasper, visibly surprised by my question, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea."

To which I replied, "Well, do you really feel qualified to discuss baseball, when you
don't even know crap?"

With that, I turned around on my heel and heard them both howling with laughter behind me as I started walking towards the others.

"I'm glad you're here." Mrs. Cullen was saying to Bella. "We need an umpire."

"She thinks we cheat." Emmett said skeptically, walking past us, still laughing.

"Do you?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned guiltily.

"Oh, I know you cheat." Mrs. Cullen told him and then turned to my cousin, "Call 'em as you see 'em, Bella."

I was watching Emmett beatboxing and trying to decide whether he was dancing or warming up when I heard a loud thunder crash and Alice say, "It's time."

I don't think I so much as blinked for the next few minutes. It was the most awesome thing I had ever seen. If I didn't like baseball before, I sure do now.

Alice pitched the ball to Rosalie who then hit it at the exact same time thunder crashed. Bella and I exchanged glances and I could teel she was just as impressed as I was. After which I voiced both our thoughts, "OK, now I see why you need the thunder."

We watched Edward run at lightening pace to where the ball was headed in the woods. Bella asked, "That's gotta be a homerun, right?"

Mrs. Cullen pursed her lips together in thoughtfulness and replied, "Edward's very fast."

He caught the ball, threw it to Mrs. Cullen who touched the base at almost the exact moment Rosalie slid into it.

"You're out." Bella told her.

"Out! Woo!" Emmett hollered. Then said to his wife, who was glaring at Bella for her call, "Hey, it's just a game." Man, if looks could kill . . . I had to stifle my laugh; Bella looked way too intimidated.

After both Dr. Cullen and Jasper hit homeruns, and the game was going great, I suddenly heard Alice call out in a distressed voice, "Stop!"

Everyone immediately dropped what they were doing and looked over to her. Edward, reading her mind, saw what she saw and I tried reading his mind but all I could see was the silhouettes of three people walking in the woods. I guess he was trying to block me. I wondered why.

They all ran at vampire speed to home plate and started looking extremely panicked. 'What is going on?' I wondered. But Edward didn't answer me. He was doing his best to block me. Without thinking, I tried reading the others and then remembered I couldn't.

"They were leaving, then they heard us." Alice said with extreme worry in her voice.

Dr. Cullen put his hand on my back and gently shoved me toward Mrs. Cullen who put her arm around me. I looked with confusion into her deeply concerned face. "What's wrong?' I asked her, but she didn't answer.

"Let's go." Edward said urgently, grabbing Bella and pushing her towards the truck.

"It's too late." Dr. Cullen told him.

"Put your hair down." Edward ordered Bella.

"Like that'll help. I could smell her from across the field." Rosalie retorted.

"I shouldn't have brought you here. I'm so sorry." I heard Edward tell Bella who looked just as confused as I was. "Just be quiet and stand behind me."

"Carlisle." Mrs. Cullen said fearfully to her husband he as walked by us. She tightened her grip around me and they both stared meaningfully into each other's eyes for a long moment before he told her, "She should be alright. Her blood does nothing for us, there's no reason it will be any different for them."

"What's the big deal?" I asked them. "Aren't all of you vampires friends?"

Dr. Cullen gave me a quick, small smile and then put his forefinger over my lips and told me, "Shhh. Don't speak." And then turned and walked where the others were standing in something of a half circle formation. Mrs. Cullen and I followed and I stood next to her to await our visitors.

Out of the woods came three wild-looking vampire nomads. One woman and two men. They walked towards us and stopped when they were about ten feet away. They were vampires, I knew that much. But they looked so different from the Cullens in so many ways. The most obvious and the one thing I couldn't stop staring at was their bright red eyes. It was almost hypnotic.

"I believe this belongs to you." said the man in the middle, holding up a baseball and then throwing it to Dr. Cullen.

"Thank you." Dr. Cullen replied.

"I am Laurent." He introduced himself. "And this is Victoria and James." Adding the people on either side of him. They both nodded a greeting to us. Their eyes were mezmerizing.

"I am Carlisle and this is my family." Dr. Cullen said, gesturing to the rest of us.

"Hello."

"I'm afraid your hunting activities has caused something of a mess for us."

"Our apologies. We didn't realize this territory had been claimed."

"Yes. Well, we maintain a permanent residence nearby."

"Really!" He seemed genuinely surprised."Do you mingle with humans as well?"

"Yes. We have a few human friends."

"Why are your eyes red?" I absent mindedly blurted out, disobeying Dr. Cullens orders. Oops! I didn't mean to blow my cover. I looked sideways and saw Dr. Cullen had a very irritated-yet-patient look.

"Apparently so." Laurent said to Dr. Cullen, looking curiously at me. "And is your human 'pet' aware of your . . . uniqueness?" I guess he didn't think vampires were capable of having human friends. If the Cullens could do it, why couldn't any of them?

"She knows what we are." Dr. Cullen explained. "We hunt only animals. Our eating habits cause the difference in eye our color that she is used to seeing."

"So she's never met any other vampires?" Laurent half asked, half commented, amusingly.

"Why are yours red?" I asked him again, impatiently. I hated it when people talked about me as if I weren't there.

"Obviously not." He chuckled. Victoria gave me an evil smile. Mrs. Cullen tightened her grip around me.

"Strange." He said, still staring at me, very curious. Sniffing the air he added, "She has a very unusual scent. It's not alluring in the slightest."

"That's because . . . " I started to answer as-a-matter-of-factly.

"No, it's not, is it?" Dr. Cullen replied in a censured way that let him know the subject was to be dropped. Why was he being so impolite to these people? I liked them!

"Well, we wont be a problem any more. We were just passing through."

"The humans were tracking us but we led them east." Victoria spoke up. "You should be safe."

"Excellent."

"So, could you use more players?" Laurent asked, playfully.

The Cullens were looking back and forth between themselves warily and looked up to Dr. Cullen for an answer. I don't know what they were so hesitant about. Any more vampires in this game would make it that much more awesome!

"Oh, come on. Just one game." He persisted. I thought the Cullens were all being rude by not instantly agreeing.

"Yes!" I answered for them, enthusuastically. This was gonna be great!

Laurent and Victoria looked at me and smiled humoredly. But not James. He was too busy having a staring contest with Edward. I didn't bother trying to read Edward's mind to find out why. I was too interested in our other two visitors. But I think it had something to do with Bella.

"Sure. Why not?" Dr. Cullen finally agreed, giving the final word of approval."A few of us were just leaving, you could take their place." He better not have meant me, I wanted to stay. "We'll bat first." He said, throwing the ball back to Laurent.

"I'm the one with the wicked curve ball." Victoria jokingly warned.

"Oh. Well, I think we can handle that." Jasper told her with a smirk.

"Ohhh!" Laurent played along. Everyone laughed casually as they walk away to get into their positions. Thank God! It's about time everyone started to relax. Everyone, except Edward and James, who were both still glaring at each other. Seriously, what is their deal?

I had started to skip over to a boulder where I could watch the game when out of nowhere I felt a hard breeze blow through the field. Behind me, I heard someone breathing in the air deeply and could barely make-out James saying, "You brought a snack."

Suddenly, for reasons unbeknownst to me, the atmostphere changed. I heard a bunch of hissing and before I could even figure out what happened, I turned around and saw that the Cullens were all crouching in a defensive position opposite the nomads who were doing the exact same thing. I just stood their in shock trying to figure out what was going on.

"Another human?" Laurent asked in disbelief.

"She is also with us." Dr. Cullen told them. "I think it's best if you leave."

"I can see that the game is over." Laurent said after a moment. "We will go now." He started slowly backing away and scrutinizing me one more time.

"James." Laurent called after his friend after who had lingered. He and Victoria then straightened up, put their arms around each other and joined Laurent walking back from where they came.

"Whoa! What what was THAT about?" I asked, still in shock. No one answered me.

"Get Bella out of here." Dr. Cullen told Edward, urgently. "Go. We'll take Lanie back to our house."

Edward quickly grabbed Bella's arm and pulled her towards the Jeep, strapped her in and sped off. The others quickly picked up their baseball stuff that was still lying around and started running back to the house. It was then that I realized none of them had brought cars. a

"I'll get the Mercedes and come back for you two." Dr. Cullen told his wife in a hurry who nodded in agreement. Wow, that sure was going to waste a lot of time.

"We don't have time for that." I told them. They both stopped and looked down at me. "Why don't you just . . . carry me?" I knew that Edward had ran with Bella a few times and always wanted to try it myself.

They exchanged uncertain glances for a short moment and then looked at me again. "Just this once." Dr. Cullen agreed.

He put one arm behind my back and the other behind my knees and picked me up. I put my arms around his neck and closed my eyes. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I figured it would be cool and I was right. . . .sort of. It basically felt sorta how it did when I used to ride in the bed of my Dad's truck, execpt WAY faster.

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