AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't have a timetable for updates, so sorry if this is a tad late! See if you can guess who survived the battle with the Volturi. ;P Hoping for reviews! :D

Chapter Three

"Didn't you get any shut-eye last night?" asked Anne worriedly while the three of us sat around the dining table in the lounge, eating breakfast. At least, the two women were. I was mainly struggling not to close my eyes and let my head fall on the table. Knowing my luck (or lack thereof), my ringlets of hair would fall into the bowl of cereal, bulls-eye. Besides that con, it was also rude to nap while eating with strangers who were lodging you in their house for a year. Very rude. (My first foster family had tried to beat me up for doing it. Thankfully, I'd gotten away to the miles-away police station with only a black eye and some glass shards stuck the back of my hand.)

"No, she stayed up all night long," Alice replied, almost as if I wasn't in the cottage then. Both of them shot concerned looks at me in perfect unison. But, hey—Alice spilled my secret without asking me for permission! I ought to be mad at her.

"Where's Hal?" I said. They frowned in confusion. "Your boyfriend," I explained, finding it weird that they didn't know who Hal was. "You said that he was visiting last night, ma'am," I said, addressing Anne, "but he never showed up. Or did I go to sleep too early for that?"

I realized my error too late. Anne pounced on it eagerly.

"I heard you screaming the previous night," she said.

"Did you have nightmares?" said Alice, almost as if on cue. Hell, everything they did was so organized and perfectly executed that I kept wondering when they rehearsed these stuff. At midnight sharp? Highly unlikely—there were no visible signs of exhaustion and lack of sleep in their behavior.

"Do you want to lock the door before you sleep?" said Anne.

"What were you dreaming about?" Alice pestered. "Is it a regular occurrence?"

Yes, yes, you don't want to know, and yes, I thought. But I couldn't say that and hurt their feelings now, could I? Oh, no, no, no—perfect little Renesmee Cullen just had to poke her head out right now and show herself to the world. (Hey, where did Vanessa Wolfe go? You know, the inconsiderate sinner?)

"I had dreams," I said slowly.

"Yes?" said Alice. Anne shushed her with a freezing look.

"About…the end of the world." Drumroll for Vanessa Wolfe, please! Very, erm, creative lie, although it was rather dramatic. And it wasn't exactly a lie; the world had seemed to end when they died. Actually, it should have ended. Why hadn't it? It escapes me, honestly. So, the twisted truth: a perfect lie! I ought to get an A+ from my boss! No, wait, I had come to Forks partially because I wanted—needed—a new life; one without the pain and sins and…the Gangs.

Alice and Anne gasped like a pair of wizened old grannies at a spark of new gossip.

"The end of the world!" Anne cried.

"How horrific!" Alice agreed.

Anne reached over and patted me on the forearm, looking all maternal and pitying. Immediately my walls came up and enclosed my heart. Who cared if Rome wasn't built in a day? I could get my shields up in the blink of an eye. "It's going to be OK," she assured me. "They're not real. They're just nightmares."

I tried not to recoil from her hand. It was cold. (Cold?) Not as cold as a vampire's, but still cold. Or was I biased just because my temperature was always above that of a normal human's? Yup, I was biased. No vampires here. They were all dead. (All. Dead. All because of stupid effing me.)

She was wrong. It was my real life—this silent mourning and anger and bitterness and sinning. Sinning most of all.

My phone rang just then, and I was freed.

"Please excuse me for a moment," I mumbled, and walked up the stairs and into Alice's bedroom. I pressed the green button and held the phone up to my ear. "Hello, Vanessa Wolfe here."

"Jay." The single word, my nickname by the Gang, sent shivers down my spine. I was about to hang up, but Keith, the leader of our Gang, stopped me with a low growl. "Jay, I forbid you to hang up on your leader."

"Keith." I said his name without any whimpers, like I was just stating the fact that my family had died. "We had an agreement."

"Had being the keyword," he replied smoothly. I gritted my teeth. He always found loopholes. "We need you. Now."

"Why? You allowed me to leave for a year, Keith."

"The other Gangs have found out your secret." My heart stopped with those last four words. Oh no, was all I could think. Oh no. Oh no. Not again.

"My…secret." With our Gang, you couldn't exactly make it obvious that you wanted something. Because then you wouldn't get it, not even if you went through hell and came back. You had to keep prompting; you had to keep a poker face as though you didn't give a damn about the world.

"Yes, your secret. Your…bloodsucking one."

I sucked in a deep breath. Exhaled. Downstairs, all was as silent as the dead of night. "They want to do something about me. Eliminate me, perhaps?"

Keith gave an amused chuckle. "Close guess, Jay. No wonder I chose you as my second-in-command. They think it's unfair for us to have you."

I blew out an exasperated breath and began pacing the hall. "Life is unfair. What did they expect?"

"Well, for one, you would be especially hard to kill. And you're attending the Tournament."

"Yes, well, I was forced to sign up by a certain somebody." The effing bastard. "They've got all those supernatural creatures, too."

"No cute little vamps, though."

"We only have one enchanter, and he's a drunk. Did I mention that our illusionist is an antisocial, workaholic introvert?" I snorted. "By the way, she's also an adrenaline junkie. Yeah, what an advantage we have over them!"

"I hope that wasn't sarcasm to your boss, Jay," said Keith, his voice ominously low.

I backpedalled faster than I'd ever had, like a child caught with telltale cookie crumbs smattered all over her face. "No, of course not, Keith! I was just—"

"I didn't hear a thing."

I let out a sigh of relief. It was Keith's way of allowing us—only his favorite ones—to ignore the unwritten rules. "Yes, sir."

"You have to come back." We had spun full circle. Just like old times. I had to crack a weak smile at that. It was a constant, though it was quite infuriating sometimes.

"Back to L.A?" I whispered, my heart dropping like a skydiver without a parachute. I couldn't believe it. Hardly two days, and I was being ordered back. Not when I had finally gained the courage to return here. Not when I was finally beginning to get a peace of mind with all the constant green. "Please don't do this to me, sir."

He paused. "I thought Washington was where your family died."

"I am trying to gain forgiveness and inner peace." I felt stupid and childish saying the latter, but it was true.

"What are you, a monk?" scoffed Keith. "I'm telling you this, Jay: you're a sinner. Nothing will change that. You want constants? Come back, then. You know we understand. Hell, we've done our fair share of 'em sins—we're still doing them up till this day. Come back, sister. Your Gang will stand by your side. You don't need some religious 'inner peace' thingamajig to cope."

My eyes brimmed with hot tears threatening to spill over. I wiped them dry on the sleeve of my sweatshirt, making an attempt to stay strong. Tears were weak and the Gang didn't appreciate any shows of weakness, especially not Keith. "I will," I said.

"When?" So he had caught the fact that I hadn't specified my promise. We were all expertized in acquiring and using loopholes.

"I'm not sure."

An exasperated sigh came from his end. "Fine—any time before next month is fine. Just…just keep safe, OK? We need you for the big tea party." It was our nickname for the Tournament, something that Valentina Smithfield—the aforementioned Val—had come up with while reading Alice in Wonderland. "You're one of our most invaluable assets."

"Yes, sir. I will."

"And I heard something about the Vol-Vol…" he trailed off. "Whatever they're called. Some rumors…faint, but I heard 'em all the same."

NO. No effing way was this freaking possible. No, not again. PLEASE tell me this is a mix-up.

"Yeah?" I breathed, my voice raggedy. Downstairs, Alice and Anne burst in conversation once more, but I couldn't make out the details. They were speaking too fast, and my heart was pounding louder than ever in my ears. "I'm not sure I am following, sir." Keep calm, keep calm. It was all I could do not to demand answers right there and then.

"Well, you see," he said, "the Vol-whatsit are onto this trail. They've been looking for years—and that's a feat worth noting—but now they've found her."

"Oh? And who is this…woman?" I feigned ignorance as he thought about it.

"She ought to be a woman, but she's stuck at seventeen forever." My heartbeat was so loud I could hardly hear him over it. "She's this hybrid beast, they say. I also hear tell that they're hunting her down. As. We. Speak."

I thought they had lost my trail and had given up. After all, it was the whole reason why Ja—he had died: for me. And now, not only had I not repaid the favor, now the Volturi had caught me. For the second time in a decade. I was getting rather sloppy. I deserved to be caught and killed at their hands.

In my moment of overdue epiphany, I threw caution to the wind. "Why are they still chasing her?" I asked. "How did they catch her? Are they still in Volterra?"

I could practically hear the smug smirk in his voice as he answered. "Oh…I dunno. Why, do you know this gal? Is she—Ohhhh, I see. Indeed, indeed. So this is why…"

SHUT UP AND ANSWER ME! I wanted to shout. "Sir, please answer—" But before I could continue, he disconnected and I was left hanging.

Anne called from below, "Nessa! Come on down and meet Alice's boyfriend."

Looking at my haunted reflection in the mirror, I tried out quirking my lips and practiced until I was sure it looked natural. I then cleared my throat and sashayed down the stairs as though I hadn't a single care in the world.

Anne met me at the bottom and led me to the lounge, where petite little Alice was brighter than I had ever seen anyone, sitting on the sofa beside a blond-haired young man with a composed expression.

"Hey, Nessa," Alice greeted me as I perched on the armrest of a couch far away enough to ensure them privacy. Her pleased grin was contagious, but I kept my mouth a flat line. It wasn't hard, truth be told. "This is Hal Whitlock, my boyfriend. Hal, this is Vanessa Wolfe. She's the exchange student from…er, where were you from again?"

"California," I said.

"Oh, yeah! Nessa's from California."

Hal smiled a little and held out his hand for me to shake. I did so happily, thankful that not all the people expected a hug. Not that that wasn't an exaggeration, of course.

"Hello," he said. He was paler than Anne, but almost the same as Alice. Still, they were some of the palest humans I had ever encountered.

"Hello, sir," I said, then instantly mentally cursed myself for it. It could be a tad weird to people in general if a teen girl only a few years younger came up to them and called them 'sir'.

His smile widened slightly. Apparently, he was big on the respect thingy.

Anne entered with a platter of fruit and chocolate Oreo cookies, and served them right up. "We've just had breakfast," she explained apologetically to Hal, "but I assume you didn't eat anything, so I decided to treat you all with these."

I would have dug right away. It would've cheered me up plenty after the Volturi rumors, but this wasn't my family. They were strangers. Thus I had to hold back politely while the others ate, only joining in when they had moved on to their second helpings.

And it was torture, I tell you—torture! They ate and chewed and swallowed real slow, while I could only watch in starvation. After having tormented me enough—I was certain that they did it on purpose—Anne looked me in the eye and asked me if I was allergic to anything. Afraid to hurt her feelings, I quickly shook my head like a good little girl and started scarfing them down.

Long after they had finished, all of them looking a shade or two paler than before, I was still on my last Oreos. They studied me like I was a guinea pig that had undergone scientific experiments. I didn't like the look of that at all.

"So," said Anne, "where exactly are you from, Vanessa?"

Should I tell them the truth or not? queried my mouth. I'm good at lying. REALLY good.

"Well," I said, shifting uncomfortably on the stiff armrest, "technically, ma'am, I'm from Los Angeles."

"Is that where you were born?" said Anne.

"My birthplace is Forks, ma'am," I said.

Why didn't you lie? roared my brain. You could have lied!

I dunno, said my mouth, sounding like it would shrug if it could. That's what her heart told me to do.

True, that, my heart confessed.

I shut them up and focused on the real conversation instead of an internal one with my body parts. (OK, now that sounded crazy, not to mention gross. Crazier than losing an argument with an inanimate object. But since I did both, my opinion was hardly worth much.)

Oddly, I now found that all three of them were looking at me queerly.

"What?"

"Well," said Alice hesitantly, her golden-brownish eyes bugging out enough to tell me that she thought that I wasn't as sane as I would like to be, "you were talking."

"So were you," I pointed out, gesturing to all of them.

"Yeaaaahh…" said Alice, dragging the word out so much that it became two syllables. God, she sounded like she was about to tell me that I had a rare, incurable Antarctic disease which would only allow me one more day of life! "But you were kind of talking to yourself. You just told us to 'shut up'."

I felt like slapping my forehead with my palm. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Was I actually turning more insane by the minute? Were they going to manacle me to a portable bed/stretcher and hustle my screaming figure off to the insane asylum? Effing crap.

"I apologize most sincerely for everything," I said. Seeing their freaked-out, confused faces, I couldn't help but attempt something stupid and hilarious. "OK," I said, holding up an Oreo cookie. "Look at this." I got out a string from my jeans pocket, bit an infinitesimal hole through the cookie, and looped the string in, tying it until the Oreo was dangling from one end of the string like a pendulum.

I swung it from side to side, gently at first, but gradually increasing the tempo. "Follow it with your eyes," I ordered them, biting back a giggle. Their wide eyes stalked the Oreo's movements without blinking once. "Now, you are very sleepy. Very tired. You want to go to sleep." It was so hilarious, I should have gotten out a camera or something and taped it and posted it on YouTube. Well, too bad so sad. The time to do all that was over now. "But you can't sleep yet," I reminded them sternly. "You do not remember anything that relates to my potential insanity. You do not remember—"

"Wait a sec," Alice piped up. "You're insane? Did you visit Seattle's insane asylum?"

She and Anne looked at each other and promptly screamed. Well, I suspect Alice did most of the screaming. Anne was just gaping and murmuring incomprehensible words under her breath and shaking Alice's shoulders. But I suppose we can all agree that they were freaking out together.

Since he was the only person other than me in the room who was not freaking out, I looked to Hal for support. His confused eyes met mine and we did a half-shrug in unison.

"Ladies," Hal said, "I think what Vanessa said was 'potential insanity'. Not insanity."

"Hey," I said, feeling unreasonably and immaturely offended (don't blame me—something about quiet, composed Hal made me want to prove myself), "if you're going to quote me, you should say 'potential insanity' because that's what I said. I didn't say 'potential insanity' now, did I?" And while I was feeling pleased with my immature logic, Hal turned back to calming the 'ladies' down.

"Look, I'm not insane!" I told them.

"We know you're not." That was Alice. Well, no, it wasn't—it was an unexpected answer. But you know what I mean.

"What?"

"Of course," said Anne serenely.

"What?"

Since I was apparently unable to say more than that one word, Hal took over the interrogation. "She means to say: Then why did you scream?"

"I meant what I said," I said, offended again, "and what I said was 'what'." He was in no position to control me like this.

"We thought you found out the secret," said Alice cryptically. "You don't know, I presume?"

"What secret?" I said.

Anne beamed at me as if she had gotten an early Christmas present. "It's nothing you need to worry about," she assured me. "Just don't go to the insane asylum in Seattle, OK?"

"Why would I go?" I asked, my rebellious side secretly thinking that I would go as soon as possible.

"Wow, those cookies were great, Es—Anne!" Alice cried suddenly, throwing her arms around the woman.

"Thank you, Alice," Anne replied. "But I didn't make them."

"Hey, Nessa," Alice said to me, "do you think you'll go to Forks High while you're here?"

My chest clenched, suffocating me. It was the school Momma had attended during her stay in Forks. It was highly unlikely that I would see something obvious like her footprints that would remind me of her, but I was growing paranoid.

"I…" I breathed. "I d-don't know…"

"Do not fret, Nessa," Anne said. "We will help you enroll."

Holy shit—WHAT? I did NOT want to enroll in any new school, least of all the place that my family, guised as high school students, had attended right before they died. What the effing hell were they thinking?!

Anne leveled a stern, teacher-like look at me. "Please refrain from swearing," she said. Darn it. I hadn't meant to say it all aloud. "And as long as you stay under my roof, you will be attending Forks High School, heedless of your protests. You will start on Monday. Is that clear?"

I hung my head. This was not turning out good. I only had this weekend to explore Forks and La Push before school started. Damn. "Yes, ma'am."

Anne waved a hand, the smile back on her face now that I had given in to her. She was alike Esme in many ways, including this. Once, I had refused to do my homework, and boy was Esme mad! "Now run off and enjoy your remaining two days of freedom," she offered. "Isn't it a beautiful day?"

"Yes, ma'am." I stuffed my makeshift Oreo pendulum into my jeans pocket and left the cottage, suddenly pierced by a thought: I could go and check on La Push.

The Pack was probably all…all dead, but I had to go. Maybe, sitting on the edge of the cliffs, I would be able to find forgiveness for my unforgivable sins and peace.

I'm telling you this, Jay: you're a sinner. Nothing will change that. Keith's words echoed in my head. He was right about many things. And this…this was true. So, so true. I was a sinner. I was a coward. La Push deserved much better than to have me and my blackness tainting it.

I turned from the border of the forest and followed the road to Forks.

Nothing will change that.

True. Again.