SUP, CHILLUNS OF THE WORLD?!

This would be chapter twenty six, and I am so flippin happy because coming up is the one year anniversary of Dancing with Fire. CUE CONFETTI!!

-La Bamba begins to play in the background as a carnival enters my school's computer lab. An elephant gets stuck in the doorway.--

Unfortunately, it is not all good news, seeing as I won't have time to work on a super awesome special birthday update since my schoopl is going to London this Friday. You have no idea of the amount of giddyness that is coursing through me at this moment. I swear, I look like Alice on crack. But without the totally cool vampiric-ness. And now my fellow author peoples are staring at me.

BUT ALAS! I have to post this before I go to history in about 3 minutes. So here is the disclaimer:

Disclaimer: Why do you even ask anymore?

And now, ON WITH THE STORY!!

--Demon POV--

"Demon, I'm going to murder you. Painfully. With a spoon. EAT, DAMN YOU!"

Max was angry at me. And threatening to gouge my spleen out with a spoon if I didn't eat. Max and Fang had made it their personal business to make sure that I ate food today, seeing as I hadn't eaten since Valerie --wince-- had left. My stomach had been trying to eat itself for the past few hours.

I was sitting in front of a full plate of food that must have gotten cold about thirty minutes ago, about fifteen minutes after Max and Fang had brought it upstairs to try to get me to eat again. I had been staring at the same spot on the wall from the bed for about an hour, and I still couldn't bring myself to do anything productive. So, my food was untouched, and my thoughts were running wild.

What are they doing to her? What if they're trying to use her for that reproduction test that they had been talking about a the mall a while ago? What if she's dying? Oh, God, I'm gonna be sick.

I couldn't concentrate on anything. My mind kept running the most horrible situations on what had happened to her, and I wanted my best friend back so that I could chain her to my side for the rest of our lives and say that she was never able to go out of my sight again and then simultaneously yell at her for ever having not listened to me in the first place.

I winced again.

I missed her. I missed her a lot, and I was absolutely terrified that something bad had happened to her. She was my best friend, practically my sister. I was supposed to look out for her, although most of the time it was her looking out for me. And then I had gone and lost her. Jeez, I'm an idiot.

And so then, naturally, I just stopped functioning. No facial expressions, no real healthy food intake, no involvement in anything. I had cut myself off from everyone and everything. Even Hope and Nudge, our resident balls of sunshine, had stopped trying to get me to join in any of the Flock activities. I just couldn't see the point in actually forcing my body to do anything. Well, except try to look for her. But no one would let me go anywhere. Especially Blaze and Skye. He kept me under a microscope, as if he was waiting for me to completely fall apart. Skye kept looking at my arms as if she was waiting for the answers to life to appear on them.

But I didn't react. Essentially, I was 103 pounds of lifeless body, and that was where Max and Fang just about lost it.

Max threw her hands up in the air and said, "Fine! Starve yourself! See if we give your damned carcass a funeral!" With that, she walked out of the room. I was surprised though that Fang stayed behind, but I didn't let it show on my face.

He stared at me silently for a few seconds, and then took a seat beside me. He took a deep breath and then began to talk. "Look," he started off softly, "I get how much she meant to you. But you have to live to actually be able to go after her."

There was a silence, and then for the first time in days, I spoke. "I keep losing her."

Fang blinked twice, his way of saying "Holy flipsticks, he spoke", and then recovered. "I get it. But you can't find her again if you're dead."

We sat there in silence for a long time, and then my stomach growled extremely loudly. I picked up the fork and began to eat my dinner. Fang didn't say anything, and neither did I, but I couldn't help but feel that that conversation had qualified as our first "brothers" moment.

Val, just hang in there. I'm coming.

--Valerie POV—

Damn you, Gina. Damn you and your big mouth. I was ready to attack her from across the room. I had never wanted any of the Cullens to know about Demon, or Max, or Fang, or any of them. Well, actually, I never wanted them to know about me either, but that plan flew out the window when the Flyboys came in…

Leah jumped on the bandwagon as well. "Well, what others?" Evil wench. She couldn't just have dropped the topic?

I inhaled, plastered a fake look of interest on my face, and kept going as if they hadn't said anything at all. "All right, Gina, you have to take Kami back when you go tell them about where the hell I am. I can't come with you, obviously, seeing as I sort of need time to adjust to this entire new thing with being a vamp. But you all can tell them where I am in the vicinity so that they can get their butts over here. And suggest that they all move here. I'll deal with how the hell to tell them exactly why I'm here when that problem arises. Okay, so you have a few days to figure out the problem of telling them why you left me here, and then you can leave and never return unless by some freak accident they all suddenly die or something and you lot become their guardian angels. Oh, and you have to drop Kami back off over with me. And I will tell them why I have her with me once again when that problem arises. So, Carlisle, where are you guys moving to next? I need to be in that area so that Gina has some idea of where to tell them that I am so they can come and get me and we can all live happily ever after."

I spoke as quickly as I could and tried not to give out that much information like someone else --CoughcoughGinagoughcough. Carlisle wasn't exactly sure what had just happened in the last twenty seconds. Gina, on the other hand, got everything that I was saying, and immediately all the Refugees started to get up and leave.

Until Jake, who I am now considering an impulsive idiot, stepped in front of the door, trying to block it. "Wait, you never answered Leah's or Seth's question. There are more of you?" Everyone else was looking deeply absorbed in the conversation as well. Carlisle especially. Yeah, this is where all the labcoat tendencies come out and where I silently relive memories that have nothing to do with him.

I sighed, trying to hand Kami over to Gina. "Ok, when you find 'em, be sure to tell them that I'm ok. D will birth a small dinosaur out of impatience if you don't tell him that first."

Kami clung to my neck, saying, "NO, mommy! I want to stay with you!"

The inner bird maternal instinct kicked in and I re-wrapped my arms around Kami, making sure to keep them at a stable level of warmth. "Luz, Momma's going to be staying with the new people for a little while. Right as soon as you tell Daddy that I'm okay, then you can come back. And then I promise, in a few weeks you'll get to see Daddy again, okay?"

Luz nodded enthusiastically. "Just don't tell anyone that you saw me, okay? Because it's a surprise for when we're all back together, okay? Promise me, baby girl?"

Luz nodded her head again and said, "I promise." And after kissing me sloppily on the cheek, she willingly went over to Gina, who in turn picked her up as well and latched her onto her hip. I gave Gina a look full of meaning, and even though she wasn't as good as Demon at deciphering my eyes, she got the message after a while.

"Well, it was..." Exie started and trailed off.

"...interesting meeting you all," Mini completed Exie's sentence, and with a few mutterings of the word "goodbye" here and there, I watched as my family walked out to deliver one of my most important messages ever. Please hurry Gina. Even though I really want to kill you for not having told me about all this crap in the first place.

And with that, I turned to the Cullens and the werewolves and Nessie. "You know, I'm thirsty. I'll be back."

And then I ran out of the house, taking off north in the opposite direction as the Refugees had gone. Yes, I knew that it was pretty obvious that I was avoiding the Spanish Inquisition that was awaiting me as soon as I turned around and decided to go back to the Cullens. But I'm pretty good at avoiding unpleasant things, so this was nothing new. I mean, I had managed to stay out of the Institute since I was thirteen while simultaneously taking care of six other children.

I think that that qualifies as really good at avoiding unpleasant things.

But going back to the topic at hand, how the hell was I supposed to not give too much away to these complete strangers who I didn't even know if I could trust? Well, that was a lie. I mean, I knew that they weren't bad at all since their minds were almost all clean—I need to really get some background information on Rosalie and Jasper--, and they weren't exactly complete strangers, but the same concept was there. I did not do random "Oh, I'll just spill out my soul and life story to you" sessions. Except for that one time with the girls that ended pretty badly, considering that I nearly got blackmailed by Mira. And cheese-bucket, I'm on another tangent and I swear I can here foot falls behind me.

Deciding that I really should have snatched Gem away before the Refugees had left to play messenger, I turned around and sped off back in the direction of the house.

When I got back, Leah was waiting for me in front of the house. "They were going to send me after you to make sure that you didn't try to bolt and head for Quebec or something," she explained when I raised an eyebrow at her.

I rolled my eyes and walked back inside, all eyes on me once again. Jeez, is this how Oprah feels when she has so many people staring at her? I shook the thought away and double checked my mental barriers. I didn't want Edward to try to read my mind; I got enough of that from Angel.

I sat down cross-legged on the floor, and after arranging myself into a comfortable position, I waited for the first slew of questions to come. Immediately, Nessie, who was bouncing up and down in her seat, threw one at me.

"Are there others?"

I remained quiet for a small amount of time, weighing the options of telling them the truth versus lying. Finally, after a short internal battle, I decided that Gina had already spilled enough information that I couldn't lie about this question. So, I answered her in a steady voice. "Yes." I felt that the world should have fallen apart with the giant impact that that word had on the rest of my life…. afterlife…. existence. It didn't, and that's when I knew that some higher power was screwing with my life.

Bella went next. "Are they all animal recombinants as well?"

I kept the answers short and sweet. "Yes."

"How many are there?" Edward asked.

I did not look at him. "I can't say." Because that would be too much information that I don't exactly plan to give you.

Finally Carlisle spoke up. "Since you're staying with us, could we have a little background information? Like how you got like this?"

I tried to get him to backpedal as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "Umm, I'm not staying directly with you. I'm just going to be in the general area."

Esme spoke up. "And exactly where are you going to stay? What are you going to do for clothes?"

I stared at her for a while, careful not to display any of my emotions on my face. "What I always do."

Esme's face grew a little more upset. "Absolutely not! You are not leaving this house just to go and live off on your own with no real place to stay! You're staying here, no ifs, ands, or buts!"

Rosalie's eyes widened, and mentally I did a double take. "Um, excuse me?" was all that I could manage.

The look on Esme's face said it all; I was not going to leave this house. "You heard me." I think she's been inhaling a little too many of those werewolf fumes."If you honestly don't have anywhere to go when you leave here, then I am not letting you out of this house."

I stared at her for a few more seconds, and then I blurted out, "I don't even know you people! No! I am not staying with random strangers!"

Esme would have none of it. "Fine. When I was human, my name was Esme Platt. I met Carlisle once before I died when I was a teenager and had a broken leg. The second time I met him, I had tried to kill myself because I had just lost my baby boy and then tried to jump off a clif—"

"That's all wonderful and such, but seriously? You don't know if I'm a wanted criminal or anything! Why do you think those flyboys were coming after me?"

Alice stuck her foot in the giant crap-pile that this conversation was becoming next. "You couldn't be a criminal. You fell out of the sky, like an angel. And angels can't be demons." It was at that point that I had to really stifle my laughter. Oh, Alice, you'd be surprised. "Also, you're dead now, so no one would have recognized you as a vampire."

Honestly, these people are persistent. Almost as persistent as I am. "I'm not staying. I don't stay with random people that I don't know at all and are nothing like me."

Edward stepped in. "We're all vampires. I think that qualifies as something."

I snapped. There was no other word for it. Lightly snarling, I made my case. "No, it doesn't. You think you know me? You think you know about how the hell I got so many emotional and physical scars? You think you know why I don't trust you? You don't know me. I have been through things you could never even imagine. I have people chasing after me because they know how strong I am and want me to use as a machine. When I was human, I have lived on absolutely nothing for days on end. I have been through the most emotionally and psychologically damaging ordeals ever even thought of by humans and dealt with it with no one to lean on. So no, aside from the fact that we're all vampires, we are absolutely nothing alike." A candle in the corner of the room lit itself, and I tried to reign back in my anger.

There was complete silence for a few minutes, and then Carlisle said, "Even so, you told your family that you would be staying with us so that it would be easier for someone to locate you. So you are staying with us. Sorry, Val—"

"You think that you've been through a lot? More than I have? I have been abused and raped by my drunken fiancé and friends and had to live with not being able to have a child because I was changed. You think you can trump that?" Rosalie had apparently been slowly waiting to erupt after she had heard the very vague overview of the giant crap sandwich that was my life.

I chuckled humorlessly. "Honey, I know I can trump that."

And that was as far as the conversation got before Rosalie lunged at me from her seat beside Emmett. "You WENCH!"

I dodged her rather obvious attack and flipped backwards over the back of the couch. "Just trust me, Rosalie. You haven't been through anything that horrendous compared to my life."

Entirely against my will, I started having intense flashbacks of the first ten years of my life, and all the absolute chiz that I'd gone through. And that was when Jasper freaked.

"Holy shit. What the hell was that?" He yelled at me, half gasping for breath when I had managed to stop the overflow of memories. He looked like a drowned cat.

I looked him straight in the eye. "Only one percent of what I went through." And then his eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

Emmett was staring at the candle. "How the hell…?"

The candle flame was now shooting up into the air, about 5 feet above where a normal candle would stand. Tuning down my anger just a little bit, I managed to put the candle out completely.

Jasper was now staring at me openly, having seemed to realize that the candle flame got stronger with my emotions. "Valerie…" he started, and then trailed off into nowhere.

I gave him a look that could have had Fang cowering in a corner, clearly saying "Shut up or I will rip you to shreds and use you as confetti for the next party that I go to." Needless to say, he shut up, and since I was still being paranoid, I put up a block around Japer's mind to prevent Edward from finding out what the big revelation on Jasper's part was.

Except that apparently, along with being essentially a dead person walking around in regular human clothing trying to blend in and drinking the life out of people, perceptiveness is one of the other little things that you get when you're a vampire. Edward had seen the silent conversation that Jasper and I were having, and then when Jasper's mind flew off the radar, that was when all the shit hit the fan.

Edward couldn't seem to shut his flipping mouth. "You can control fire. And you know you can control fire." And then everyone started to freak out.

"Was that one of the things that you meant by we have no idea what a horrible life was like?"

"How well can you control fire?"

"What else can you do?"

I screamed, "SHUT UP!" And thankfully, everyone immediately shut up, somehow looking both scared and like how I imagined Angel did when she realized that Max and Fang had kissed each other at least four or five or seven times already.

I ignored the borderline creeper grins and sighed."I can control fire." Well, that cat's out of the bag.

Seth re-asked his question. "What else can you do?"

I glared at him, thinking to myself that these people were quickly making me want to set fire to the house. "Now why would I tell you that?"

Bella finally got annoyed enough. "Oh, come on, Valerie. You know that we're all vampires. We're all essentially sharing our lives with you, and yet you're standing there being selfish. We opened up to you, it's your turn."

I took one good long look at Bella, and then went over the options in my head. On the one hand, she's right. They essentially already took you in. Esme especially. I mean, she's offering you a place to stay for however long it takes for the others to get here. For some reason, the voice of reason in my head sounded surprisingly like Demon.

Yeah, but I have never even told the story before. I keep things quiet and try not to draw any attention to myself. And I have the extreme version of paranoia. I don't tell people anything unless they have some sort of animal appendage somewhere on them. And that's only after a rigorous game of Spanish Inquisition to make sure that they're not working for Itex.

Demon-conscience sighed. It would do you a lot of good to just tell them. And besides, you don't even have to tell them the full story. Just an overview.

…Fine. And why the hell do you sound like Demon?

Demon-conscience laughed. Because he's your, well our, voice of reason, seeing as you never got one when you were born.

I broke out of my internal conversation with myself—Sweet mushrooms, I've gone mad. I'm talking to myself. Or, at least, my own Jiminy Cricket.—to look at the rest of the room. My eyes traveled over each face: Leah, Seth, Jacob, Renesmee, Bella, Edward, Emmett, Rosalie, Alice, Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle. They all were still staring, obviously waiting for me to start talking.

I got up and started to pace. "You're going to wear a hole in the floor." Emmett said after a few minutes. I couldn't help the exasperated sigh that I let out. Here I was, about to pour the overview of my life story, and he was there making jokes while I internally had a coronary?

Damn arsehole.

Demon conscience reared his head again. Breathe Val. Just get it together and talk.

I mentally smacked myself. I really need to stop talking to myself. We already have one nearly insane leader.

Finally, I spoke. "'Kay, all I'm going to tell you is that I don't want your pity. You asked for the story and I am going to give it you."

After a few more moments of silence, I started.

I, technically don't exist." I paused. "And the people who made me like this would have liked to keep it that way. Though that apparently just went out the window.

"I'm an experiment from a group called Itex. They mixed a human embryo with bird DNA through amniocentesis and the result would be me. There are a few others like me who actually survived long enough to bust out of the Institute and/ or the School, like Gina. But overall, people don't usually get out of there alive. You either break out or die. The Institute is where they… raised us, but not the way any parent would. I hope.

"My family consists of several other hybrids, and we are the oldest living specimens to survive. We will keep it that way. No ifs, ands or buts. The scientists at Itex will stop at nothing to get us back, because they are terrified that we will expose ourselves to the world and the government will track them down and arrest them all. Which I would have absolutely no problem with, except for the fact that we actually like to fly under the radar. No pun intended.

"There are tests of endurance at the School and the Institute, to see how long you can withstand pain without passing out. You get electrocuted, they inject colored dye into your bloodstream, make you run until you pass out. They drug you, throw you around like a rag doll, and tear you apart. If they screw up, if something goes wrong, it's always your fault. To them, it's always the experiment's fault.

"You are put on display. If they want to take something from you, it they want to run a test, take some measurements, then you let them. That's how it is; you do what you're told, nothing more and nothing less.

"To them, you have no name. You are an Experiment Number. You have no rights. You are expected to behave. You do not make sounds, you do not try to disobey. And most of all you do not try to escape. Or you're going to the Eraser playroom.

"Erasers are, besides us, the longest lasting experiments that Itex has ever made. They're part man part wolf, and all evil. The flyboys were next in line of evolution. Part wolf, part robot. When they failed too, they made what they all saw as the "perfect experiment". None of them worked.

"The main thing that the whitecoats tried to do was to break you. Obey the rules, don't do anything they considered rash, and eventually you don't feel anything. Just obey. The pain was less that way.

"Those of us who escaped, we're special in that way. We wouldn't let them break us. Instead, we broke all of the rules. And that's why I'm here; because I never listened. I was stubborn. I didn't stop talking back. And that's where I got all my scars from. My life is one big contradiction onto itself. I shouldn't exist, but I do anyway. Because I fought. And that's, in a nutshell, the giant crap sandwich that is my life."

Did you like it?! THEN REVIEW, DAMN YOU!! And then you may reread to your heart's content.

MUCH LOVE!! And now Imust go and tell my homeroom teacher that I am here, since I have yet to even move from the computer since I got to school.

Peace, love, and "My Latin teacher had to assure me today that he was not secretly doing Dominatrix-like activities. This school makes my life.",

Skittles31