Chapter 9 – Time waits for no one

N – P.O.V.

Zora and Renée are back at the house working on Isa' birthday plans, while we have her out in the forest playing a game of capture the flag Vampires vs. Hybrids. Playing capture the flag is one of the few times Isa lets her hair down so to speak. A game can last days when we play it started as a way for us to teach Renée and Isa to use their scenes while not hunting down prey. Isa always hides our flag high in the treetops where the others have a hard time finding it. Even if they see it, they can't get to it easily because as adults we weigh so much more than she does the branches break.

She discovered this when technique while playing tag, she would jump from tree to tree rather than running because she was faster that way, then she figured out we could only follow her so far before the branches would break. I think we were all shocked at how fast she figured out how to beat us all. Tag and Hide n' Seek where also games we used to teach them about their senses. I had also hoped it would trigger Isa' protective side and she would use her dome to keep from being tagged.

Dermott and I spent hours discussing ways to trick her into using it, however it never worked. We tried sneaking up on her to startle her, picking fights with Renée to see if she would protect her again. We even went as far as to have Renée pretend to attack Zora while teaching Renée to fight. We came to the conclusion that because she trusted us she was not in danger.

Then one day while just Isa and I were gathering her favorite berries to bring back to the house, she asked me about it.

"Aren't you bored with your games yet?" she asked, as I was just about to pounce on her. "I mean, wouldn't it be easier if you just asked?"

"What are you talking about Isa?" she looked over her shoulder at me and rolled her eyes.

"Come on Nate, you and all the others having been trying to get me to use my shield ever since I started to walk. Why not just ask it if I can do it?" She was right, of course, we had never asked her about it. Dermott and I had both been so sure that it was instinct and she would need to use it to figure it out. When I told her as much she just smiled and said,

"Well, then I guess you will have to wait and see now won't you." She giggled as sprung into the trees, to head home leaving the basket for me to run back to the house. I grab the basket and made to start after her, only to be stopped by the doom. I moved to the left thinking I would just go around it when I was stopped once more. Then her laughter filled the air,

"Well, I didn't make you wait long, but now you see. Just remember I get frustrated with Zora, and Mom, for treating me like a little kid please don't start doing the same thing." I felt bad immediately; she would always just smile and nod though their antics.

"You're right, I'm sorry, I should have come to you."

Renée and Zora often forgot that Isa was not really a little kid and wanted to do things she considered silly like, playing dress up, reading bedtime stories and generally fussing over her. She started venting to me about it in the past month or so, but she let always let them have their fun.

That first long conversation, was why I now called her Isa both Renée and Zora refer to her as "Baby Bella" and it drivers her up the wall. Bella is very mature, not just compared to a human child of her physical age but just in general. She likes to think before she acts, would rather read than watch TV, loves all types of music but hates trendy teen pop.

The only thing that she does that makes her seem younger, is that she asks "why?" It's not like the normal way that kids ask, why can't I do this or that and why do I have to do that. It's her inquisitive nature, she truly wants to know why everything is the way it is. From why the shy is blue, to why Dermott felt the need to leave his home with the Irish coven. She spends hours on her i-pad looking up the answers and hours speaking with Huilen, Dermott and me asking why we did the things we did in the past.

Renée, Zora and even Dermott to some extent think that she is too serious and often try to get her to have more "fun." She does enjoy the games we play, she simply tolerates other things, like family movie night when Zora or Renée pick a silly teen movie, or my personal favorite when they dance. Renée and Zora are both You-tube fanatics and enjoy recreating music videos. When they make Isa get involved, it's very amusing only because of the look on her face, but when she always does it just to make them happy.

My thoughts are interrupted by Isa' approach, I must admit she less noticeable on an approach than the others. It's so easy to recognize the sound of footfalls whereas if you don't know its Isa coming, you may not even pay attention to the noise she makes. She drop from the tree twenty feet in front of me, staring.

"Dermott tagged me out. I may have to let everyone in on my shield just to be able to win this game. It's not very fair when it's Vampire vs. Hybrids when we can't run as fast as them." She has a slight pout; her hair is wild and wind blown. Zora and Renée are going to make her clean up before bed I'm sure.

We are walking at human pace back towards the house.

"That's your choice; you can let them in on it whenever you want. I am still not sure I understand why you don't want them to know?"

"It's simple really, the same reason you don't let vampires know about you, even now when you don't look like an Immortal Child. If everyone knows, they might slip and say something to our other sisters when they visit. I'm the only hybrid with a power that you know of. What would Joham do with that information? I will just use it when I am alone or with you, no one can say anything if they don't know." She is right about Joham, but I still wish everyone knew.

"I really don't think they would say anything."

"I didn't mean they would do it on purpose, but, both Mom and Zora tend to speak before they think and it's just not worth the risk. Daddy dearest's side of the family sounds like they have enough troubles without Joham try to get them to come and kidnap me for my power. I think Serena will be mad enough when she finds out Aurora and I are with you."

She has a valid point, I am not sure I will be able to speak to Maysun until she decides to leave Joham for more than a visit. I merely hum, in acknowledgement. I think Zora could hold the secret, but Renée can be scatterbrained. I was hoping it's something she grows out when she is past her newborn year, but with only two weeks to go I am thinking that's just who she is. I just worry the others will be hurt by us not sharing the information. We remain silent for a while as we walk through the night, I look down at Isa and she is chewing on her bottom lip and watching the ground, it's odd behavior for her.

"Isa, what's wrong? I'm not telling them till you're ready, don't worry about that." She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. I grab her hand and stop walking because this is so unlike her.

"It's just I know they will be hurt by me not telling them but I just can't. I still have more to tell you about it, but I don't want you to be mad at me." The tears are falling and her chin is quivering as she holds back a sob.

I sit on the forest floor and pull her into a hug. I just hold her for a couple of minutes while she cries, and tries to get herself under control. Seeing her like this, makes me think that we all had a hand in making her so serious. I spoke to her every night while she was in Renée telling her to stay calm, not to hurt her mommy and that I would find a way to keep her safe. While Renée just keep up a running commentary of what she was doing or what still had to be done and telling about her wonderful father. The very same man I was promising to keep her safe from. Also overheard everything we said to Renée before she was changed, all the of cold hard facts about why we live the way we do Isa remember in detail.

"I promise not to be mad, whatever it is you have to let it out. I know you're not a kid, but you are too young to try to deal with everything alone. We can deal with together, just you and me if that's what you need." She has been holding this in for a while, and I must be really bothering her. She takes a big breath and starts.

"The first time I used my shield. . ." She tells me about her shield and how it works. I can tell from the way she talks about it that she has spent a lot of time getting it under her control. She can make cover the whole tree house, or just one of us at a time. We don't even notice when she practices, she can cover us in our own bubble and allow us to move around. She can allow things to pass trough the shield like the walls of the tree house or use it to push things out of her way.

When her shield covers us, we all have our aura like spark, she can lie in bed and know who is where just by putting it up. Then she says what she thinks is the bad part. Renée has a gift and because Isa' shield came in contact with it, she now has the same gift. Isa describes Renée power as subtle. She calls it intuition, when she makes a choice she gets a feeling and knows if it's a good choice or bad. When someone else voices a choice out loud or we discuss things as a family it works then too. She gave the example of us meeting up with the Amazon Coven; she was glad that everyone but Zora and Renée wanted to wait to meet up with them because every time it was brought up she would have a bad feeling. However, now that it has been decided that we would go meet them after her birthday she had a good feeling.

"I want to tell mom to stop ignoring her feelings, but every time I decide I am going to do it a feeling of dread comes over me. It's so strong, it's the same feeling I get when I think about telling everyone about my shield. So I've decided to trust it, I just don't understand how she can go against it."

I can't even think I am so overwhelmed by everything she told me. She waits calmly for me to say something, finally I calmly ask.

"What did your feeling say when you wanted to tell me, not this time, but in the past?"

"Um, sorta indifferent I wasn't really sure what to do with it so I just waited and then tonight when we were talking about the physical part of the shield, I decided to tell you no matter what, it was a great feeling."

"OK, well, you and I still have to work out what that indifferent feeling means. For now anytime your feeling says indifference and it's just you and me go for it and see what happens." She giggles out OK, and we head back to the house.

R – P.O.V.

I can't believe my little girl is turning one; she's growing up so fast. She's an amazing child when I woke from the change and came back from my first hunt I could not get over how beautiful she was. Sound asleep lying on Nate's chest, she looked like an angel, her brown hair was already several inches longer and was hanging in loose curls framing her face. When she woke and I saw her eyes, I was slightly confused because while I was changing I remembered what she looked and I knew she had light brown eyes. Nate told me about the odd doom she projected and said her right eye has been green ever since.

They warned me about the rapid growth I still didn't expect her to be as mature as she is. I always feel like I'm dealing with a small adult. I keep trying to remind her to have fun and to be a kid. Her childhood is already passing her by and I just want her to enjoy it. Huilen and I speak often about Bella's mental development, she reads for hours a day, asks some of the strangest questions and if none of can answer she just walks off to go find out for herself.

Huilen has already taught her Portuguese. I learned as well, but only because Bella requested that they only speak it for a week straight after she and Huilen worked on it for a few hours. I try to come up with ideas for mother daughter bonding, sadly I think we just like to do different things.

Sometimes Aurora and I can get her to play dress up or dance with us, and I do make sure I read to her every night before bed. We all enjoy playing games like tag, hide n' seek and capture the flag in the forest. Bella is really free out there without the distraction of her books. She takes to the trees when we start, she reminds me of an acrobat or trapeze artist the way she swings from branch to branch without a care in the world. We are all very competitive and games last days with us sometimes only taking breaks for the hybrids to sleep.

Life as a Vampire has not been as hard as I expected, although Dermott is always reminding me that I haven't been around humans yet. The nagging thirst is not as bad as I anticipated it to be, I still hunt every three days, but it is often because I get bored not because of the thirst. Can't wait until I prove my control and we move back into the human world.

The hard part about being a vampire what to do with all the time, I draw some, I have watched every DVD we own at least twice, and I go online a lot to look for places I want to go. The others try hard to distract me, but it only works for a while before I am back online looking for places to travel to. I'm beginning to feel trapped out here in the rainforest. I have explored as much as I can without getting too close to the humans and I have seen all that the Jungle has to offer. I hope that the Amazons will travel with us towards a city that I can visit; I would really like to see Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires then get the hell out of South America.

Bella's thirst for knowledge is like my need to see things, while she seems pretty content living in the rain forest and learning online, I feel like I am going stir crazy. I need to get back to the human world to see things for myself, and meet new and different people.

That's why I think her birthday gift will be great for both of us, after we spend a month or so with the Amazon's we are having a family road trip around the US and parts of Canada, we are going to travel around and see all the sights together as a family. We are going to stretch it out over ten months.

The only states we are skipping Hawaii, Texas, New Mexico, Florida and Maine; Hawaii and Florida for obvious reasons, Texas and New Mexico because there are still established covens in the area left over from the newborn wars. Maine we will be skipping because of my human family, we can't run the risk of me running into someone who knew me. I think after our tour of North America, we are heading to Europe; hopefully we can all meet up with the Irish Coven. By then we will be ready to settle down for a year, Bella will almost two by then and her growth will have slowed enough that we can stay under the radar as long as we don't parade her around town all the time.

AN: Thanks you for reading and please review! Bella's Birthday is up next and it will be from her POV.

*A big thanks you, to snowgoose for being the beta for this story, be sure to check out her story Missing, it's a great read. *

Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight and the twilight characters, no copyright infringement intended. 11/23/12