ArPOV:
I was picking through my food. Dad's cooking was great, but I didn't want anything in my mouth in case Ashlyn needed my defense when she told them about her relationship with Dan.
"Dad." Ashlyn says quietly.
He looks up, "Yes Artemis?"
"Well I," His eyes are piercing into her eyes. I know from experience that can make it a lot harder to confess. She took a deep breath, "I want to go out with Danny." She said this all very quickly.
Apollo had been shoveling food into his mouth, What is with boys and food? dropped his fork. The clattering of silverware against china was the only sound.
Dad was staring at Ashlyn and she was staring right back. Apollo and me kept glancing between our dad and our little sister.
"What?" Dad thought he had heard wrong.
"She wants to date Daniel Zeklos, dad." I said. His gaze turned from my little sister to me.
"You knew?" He asked.
"Only since we got out of school today. I offered to tell, but she said she wanted to." I said.
"Really?" My siblings were turning their heads like they were watching a tennis match.
"Yes dad." Ashlyn said, turning his attention back to her.
"Dad, we've known Danny his entire life. I think we can trust him." Apollo spoke up. Dad turned and glared into Apollo's eyes. Apollo stared at him innocently. Dad got up and left.
"You only just figured out you liked Danny? Really?" Apollo asked trying to lighten the mood.
"Apollo. Can it." I thought through the band.
"Oh, and it hasn't taken you this long with Andria? You haven't even mentioned it to dad." Ashlyn said her voice was dripping with venom and a hint of sarcasm.
I got out of there as fast as possible. I was on the second floor when I heard yelling. I kept walking. They could fend for themselves. I walked up the stairs that led to my Dad's room.
CPOV:
I was lying on my bed. Why did Rose have to die and leave me to raise two daughters, who were about to become teenagers?
I trusted my daughter completely, and even though I don't completely trust Danny, I did trust him a good amount. Plus they are going to school with Apollo, if Danny tried to hurt her, which I doubt he would, Apollo would have his head. And if Apollo didn't have his head, I'm pretty sure Artemis would.
That brought me to the topic of my eldest daughter. She looked exactly like Rose. She had the same brown eyes and hair. She was a dhampir so she had curves. She could also kick anyone's ass. As if her appearance wasn't enough, she acted exactly like Rose had. The only reason she spoke up in the conversation downstairs was because she didn't want her little sister hurt. She was selfless, just like Rose.
I heard a knock on my door. Speak of the devil.
APOV:
I knocked hesitantly on the door. I didn't want to disrupt him if he was thinking about Ashlyn and Danny. They were always so happy when they were together, I would hate if they couldn't be together because I interrupted Dad when he was about to make his decision.
The door opened and my dad was standing there. His face had a frown on it, but his eyes looked happy.
"Are you secretly dating someone?" He asked.
I shook my head. He pulled me into a hug. When he released me I walked over to his bed and sat on it. He sat down next to me.
"I've decided to let Ash and Dan date." He said. I nodded. We sat in silence for a while. The silence was comfortable.
"Hey dad?" He looked over at me, "Can you tell me about mom?" I asked.
He winced, "She was just like you. She looked exactly like you. I mean you look so similar, that if I hadn't seen her give birth to you and your brother, I would have thought it was cloning." I giggled at this.
He continued to tell me about her, she sounded just like Livia. Then I remembered, Livia had admitted to being my mother. I decided to see if dad knew, and give him a hint if he didn't.
"Dad? Is there any possibility mom is still alive?" I asked hesitantly, cutting right across his sentence.
"No. It's time for bed." He said. I nodded and walked out of the room. I looked back. He was deep in thought. The seed has been planted.
I walked downstairs. Everything was quiet. I knocked on Ashlyn's door.
"Go away Apollo!" Her voice broke. I opened the door, "I said go a… oh." She realized it was me.
I walked over to her and sat on the bed next to her. I gave her a hug.
"What's wrong?" I asked against her hair.
"Everything! Apollo hates me! Dad's mad at me! I probably can't see Danny ever again!" She continued on and on, sobbing into my chest.
"Shhh…" I tried to get her to calm down. After a while it worked. Now she was only whimpering. "First off. Dad is not mad at you. Second of all, who cares if Apollo is mad? He is only jealous you and Danny get to be together and he and Andria can't be." She giggled a bit. Then she realized what I had said. She pulled away from me and looked in my eyes. She had the same blue eyes dad had.
"Wait. Dad said I could go out with Danny?" She asked hopefully.
I nodded. She squealed and jumped out of my arms. She ran out the door only to come back in and hug me. Then she bolted right out of the room. I laughed and walked across the hall to my room.
I changed into a pair of white Hollister pajama pants and a tight red spaghetti strap top. I walked out of my room and knocked on Apollo's door. He opened it. He was wearing only a pair of pajama pants.
"Would it kill you to put on a shirt?" I asked as I pushed past him. I walked over to his bed and sat down on it.
"Why does my being half naked bother you?" he asked. He had a smirk on his face. He walked over to the bed and sat down next to me.
"As a matter a fact it does." I got up and went to his closet. I pulled out a shirt.
"Oh no." he said. He stood up; ready to fight me off if he needed to.
I lunged at him. He caught me and through me on the bed. It kept going like this until after a few tries I got the shirt on him.
"You suck." he said.
"I know." I said walking back to the bed. I sat in the middle of it. He sat down next to me.
"So what's up? You never come in here." He said.
"Ashlyn thinks you hate her." I stated.
"I'll go talk to her." He told me.
"I suggest you wait 'til morning. She is talking on the phone with Danny." I said.
"Oh. Dad gave them permission?"
"Yup." I popped the 'p'.
I got up and walked into my room.
CPOV:
"Dad? Is there any possibility mom is still alive?" Artemis asked hesitantly, cutting right across me.
"No. It's time for bed." I said. She nodded and walked out of the room.
I had never really thought about it before. I didn't want to. Rose had been the love of my life. She was as badass as they come, but also as nice and selfless and caring as they come. I had never really stopped to think about the possibility of her being alive.
Okay Christian. Let's think logically: layout the facts.
Rose was Janine Hathaway and Abe Muzar's daughter. Janine is a badass and Abe is a Turkish Mobster. She killed over thirty strigoi, plus been in a battle, before she graduated. Plus she managed to become top of her class even after running away for two years. And since she was shadow-kissed she was able to sense a strigoi within a mile of her. A single strigoi couldn't have killed her.
Saffron was the best in her class. Rose and Jeremy and Dimitri Belikov had trained her. Dimitri had trained Rose, helping her learn two years worth of ass-kicking material in two weeks. Jeremy was top of the class until Saffron came along. She was only thirteen, but she had killed two strigoi when Rose brought her on shopping the year before Artemis was born. She could have been taken down by a good strigoi, if they had come straight for her. Though from what the guardian had said, Rose had been the first victim. Saffron would have had time to react. She wouldn't have been awoken.
Mia was a moroi, but she was recruited as a guardian, a guardian to a royal. That meant she was good. I had seen her fight; she could take down Saffron and almost match Rose. Rose and her had taken out Dimitri together while they were both still very pregnant. Plus she was a water moroi, and knew how to use offensive magic. If she wanted, she could have easily taken down a strigoi.
Lissa wasn't as good at fighting as the other two, but Rose and Tasha had been training her. She was able to throw a decent punch, enough to stun a strigoi. She knew all the pressure points, including how to use them to paralyze, hurt and kill. Not to mention her and Adrian had found ways to use Spirit Magic aggressively and in ways no one ever thought possible. Lissa wouldn't let a strigoi take Rose down. Lissa would kill for Rose and she would be able to.
There was no possible way a single strigoi could have killed the four of them without them going willingly. So there were two conclusions: They wanted to be awoken or they were still alive.
Why did Artemis ask this? There was no way she would go ten years without asking about her mother and suddenly decide to ask about her. I doubt she would suggest that her mother was still alive on her own.
I stood up and looked at the clock. It had taken me three hours to reach this conclusion. It was now eleven. They would all probably be asleep by now. I pulled off my pants and slid on pajama pants. I quickly swapped my t-shirt for a sweatshirt that read: Outerbanx.
I climbed down the stairs to the second floor. I walked to the room across from the stairs that led to my room. I opened the door. Apollo was lying on his bed. He was wearing a pair of pajama pants, which was it. I could see a puddle of drool on his pillow. I walked over to him and closed his mouth for him. I noticed his iPod was playing and followed the cord to his ears. I took the ear buds out of his ears and turned of the iPod, putting it on the dock to charge. I gave my son a quick kiss on the forehead; if he caught me doing this he would freak.
I walked out of his room and down the hall. There was light creeping from under both doors. I opened the one on my left.
The bed was empty. I scanned the room until my eyes rested on the cluster of beanbags in the corner. My youngest daughter was sleeping on the beanbags with her laptop on her lap. She had on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. Okay, no need to worry about certain pictures for now. I sighed and walked over to her bed and pulled back the covers. I walked over to her. I picked up the Laptop. She had been on AIM. I quickly typed in a goodbye message to Dan, who she had been chatting with and logged off. I shut the computer down and placed it on the desk she had in the corner.
I slid my arms under her knees and back. I lifted her up and laid her on her bed. I pulled the covers up to her shoulders. She rolled over onto her side and curled up into a ball. I gave her a quick kiss on her forehead. I walked out of the room, turning the lights off.
I walked across the hall. I could hear quiet music playing through the door. I knocked.
"Come in, dad." Artemis called.
I walked in and asked, "How did you know it was me?"
"Apollo would've barged in and Artemis just sends me a message via brainwaves." She said, looking up from her laptop.
She was lying on her stomach, her feet near her pillows, staring at the computer screen. She was wearing a pair of white Hollister pajama pants and a tight red spaghetti strap top. Now what is she doing on the computer? I walked over to the other side of the bed.
I looked at the computer screen. It was a sports bracket. I scanned the teams. I didn't recognize any of them.
"That's our school team." She said pointing to a name.
"Canton Eagles."(A.N. Not sure if that is the real name.) "And you are watching this now because…."
"My friends are on the team." She said. She clicked on the Canton Eagles link. There were pictures of twelve girls and one adult.
I looked at the girls. She pointed to one of them and said, "That's Erika. She is one of the managers. That is Alex, she is the other captain. If Apollo didn't have Andria, I;m pretty sure he would be hitting on Alex with his cheesy pick u" She slid her hand over to another girl.
They were both wearing blue sweat suits. The jacket had their last names embroidered on their left breasts. I looked each girl over.
The first girl, her name was Erika Jameson. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. Her eyes looked like they had a hint of green in them, but not much. I looked over at her profile that was on the side of her picture, it read:
Erika Jameson
Manager
Canton Eagles
Canton Middle School
Seventh Grade
I looked over at the other girl. She had gray-ish blue eyes and blonde hair. Her eyes looked familiar, I must have seen her when I was picking up the kids. I looked at her profile. It was identical to Erika's the only difference was it said, Alex Judson instead of Erika Jameson.
Artemis scrolled down. There were two more girls. She pointed to the one on the left, "That's Meg. She is a center. And that is Livia, she is a center, too, but she is a captain. Hmm, Meg must have just been promoted. She has captain status too."
She reached for her phone and sent a text. She got a text back in under thirty seconds. I looked over the girls.
The first one had a green jersey on. It had a white two on front. She had brown hair that was pulled up into a high ponytail. She had bright blue eyes. They were so bright for a minute I thought Artemis had photo shopped Ozera-blue eyes onto the girl. I shook the thought out of my head. I looked over at her profile. It read:
Meagan Sponer
Back-up Center
Assistant Captain
Number 2
Canton Eagles
Canton Middle School
Seventh Grade
I looked over at the other girl. She had brown hair that looked so much like Rose's I felt a lump rise into my throat. Then I looked at her eyes, they were a dark, dark brown, and not the light brown my Rose had. Her hair was left flowing around her shoulders; I noticed she was the only girl who wasn't wearing a uniform.
She was sitting on a beach. She was wearing a white camisole that showed off her rather large chest. The white popped against her tan skin. She was wearing dark navy blue short shorts. I couldn't see much of her legs since it cut off right after the shorts did.
I looked over her profile:
Olivia Talte
Center
Captain
Number 3
Canton Eagles
Canton Middle School
Seventh Grade
It only took me a minute or two to look at the four girls. "Art. Start shutting it down okay. It's bedtime."
"Okay dad." She said as she started to shut her programs down.
I gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. Then walked out of the room. I walked down stairs. I was lucky for my moroi eyesight, since it was pitch-black. We had switched the royal court to human schedule after Adrian had found a way to reverse the moroi sunlight problem, so now we were stronger in the sunlight. Now the vampire world ran on human schedule.
I walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. I walked to the counter and sat down in front of my laptop I had left there. I woke it from its stand-by and opened the Internet. I got to Google and typed in Olivia Talte Canton.
There were a ton of news results all saying things like, "Canton led to victory by Olivia Talte." and "With Talte anything is possible." One article caught my eye. It was entitled, the Beginning of a New Era, written by Lillian Ozera. My eyes almost fell out of my head when I saw the name Lillian Ozera. That had been my mother's name. I read the article.
"Olivia Rose Talte seemed to come out of no where. She moved into an apartment building along with Meagan Sarah Sponer, Alexandria Amelia Judson, and Erika Andria Jameson. The four girls moved in alone, no adults accompanied them. 'I looked out the window and saw four twelve year olds carrying huge boxes up the stairs. One of them was carrying four or five at once, I later found that was Livia.' Helen Hornandez, neighbor of the girls, said.
"The girls transferred into the local middle school, quickly rising in status. All of them became sports legends. Talte alone was the captain of two teams and co-captain in sixth grade. " The story went on, but I had read enough.
I quickly typed in Northeastern Middle School Basketball Championship. I clicked on the top link. It was the same page that Artemis had been on. I clicked on Previous Champions. Of course last years was the Canton Eagles. I clicked their link. It had a bunch of pictures of the girls playing and a single video. I stated the video. I watched as Livia and Erika did a little handshake thing. I would recognize that handshake anywhere. Sure they had taken out flips and other acrobatics, but the basic hand shake was still there. Olivia Talte is Rose and Erika Jameson is Lissa.
I picked up the phone and punched in Adrian's number.
"Christian do you have any idea what time it is?" He asked.
"If you give me a minute, I'll make it all better Ivashkov." I said, dialing Jesse's number, I three-wayed it.
"What the fuck Christian! It is midnight! I want some sleep!" Jesse yelled. I thought I was cranky when I got woken up.
"Shut up and hold on." I said dialing Jeremy's number.
"What?" Jeremy asked sleepily.
"Rose and Lissa and Mia and Saffron! They're all alive! They hid, using spirit! They are going to the kid's school, well actually the kids are going to their school since they kind of run the place!" I let out in one breath. Everyone was wide awake.
"What!" Adrian yelled. "Oh my god! Clarissa told me about spirit in some girls' aura! Of course the illusion charm! Lissa could do that easy!"
"Get over here. We are going to see them." I said. Then hung up.