Disclaimer: I am not Stephanie Meyer and therefore I do not own anything that has to do with her characters. I just enjoy perverting the hell out of them.

Chapter 3

I pulled the extra batch of biscotti out of the oven and sat the tray on the cooling rack before heading out of the kitchen and into my small coffee shop, preparing to open for the day. I'd owned the coffee shop for just over two years now, and the daily start-up still left me feeling like a zombie.

I hoped that, someday in the future, I'd be able to afford to hire an employee, but so far it was only me. I simply couldn't afford to. The truth was, if I even paid myself minimum wage at the moment, I wouldn't make ends meet. The upkeep on my small coffee shop was high – far higher than I'd expected it to be when I'd dared to make the place a reality – and at the end of every month, I was barely keeping the place in the black.

I wasn't one to complain though, businesses took time to get started and made profitable... If I had to survive on Top Ramen alone until then, well so be it.

But, the start of every morning was still a pain – having to wake up at three in the morning so I could get everything baked for the day, including cookies, blondies, muffins, scones, bars, cinnamon rolls, and biscottis. It made for a long morning every day, and that was before I got the simple drip coffee going or opened the doors for the day.

I washed my hands and then headed out to the front, loading the four coffee machines which were for decaf, dark, medium, and light brews. The light one was sometimes referred to as a breakfast brew, which I'd never understood – after all, I practically needed espresso straight to keep my eyes open in the morning.

Once all the drips were running, I double checked everything, making sure all my baked goods were priced, and the coffee boards weren't messed up. Though I'd never figured out how as I was the only one who worked at my coffee shop, every once and awhile the signs for my price were just randomly messed up when I started to work.

I'd blame Edward, but he could never get far enough from me in order to mess them up. Besides, he wasn't a malicious spirit. I ought to know, I'd met my fair share of them.

Sighing, I did another quick glance around and then unlocked the front door to my shop exactly five minutes before my opening time of six. Then I proceeded to head around the counter to wait behind it for my first customer.

…

Only four hours in and it was already a slow day. So far, there'd only been sixteen customers – eleven of which had come in around seven on their way to school. The lack of customers was the hardest part for me as it made making ends meet almost impossible.

The bell on the door rang, and I looked over, smiling widely when I spotted Jake with his little sis. Of course, he came in most days, but seeing his little sister was far more rare for me. "Jules, what are you doing here with your big bro?"

"Parents want a 'rent day. Whatever that means."

I arched an eyebrow at Jake, and he mouthed, 'sex.'

I snickered slightly. "Well, what would you like to drink, Jules?"

Jules looked over the menu board as I asked Jake, "How are Sarah and Billy?"

"They're doing good, though the doctors are talking about the fact that Billy may lose his left foot, maybe even his entire leg up to his knee."

My brows furrowed. "Gangrene?"

"Not yet, but it's heading that way. The years of his diabetes are taking its toll."

"What's he had to say about it?"

"He's adamantly against the idea, of course."

"Can I have a caramel frap?" Jules added in, glancing toward me.

"No espresso," Jake said immediately.

"Then it's a shake," I pointed out.

"I don't care. You don't have to monitor the eleven-year-old brat for the day. I do. And she'll be bad enough hyped up on sugar without adding a caffeine high to the mix."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine."

I turned to make the make drink, barely noticing as Jake swiped two of my biscottis and handing one to his little sister.

"You're going to pay for those, right?" I asked as I finished prepping Jules drink, topping it off with whip cream and a striping of caramel sauce before turning back to her.

"Ummmm," Jake started.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes again. "Let me guess. You forgot your money at home again."

"Possibly." He looked away.

"Mooch," I grumbled playfully. When we were younger, I'd have reached out and messed up his hair, but that was hard to do anymore with the fact that he was over a foot taller than me.

"Hey, I always get you paid... eventually."

"My eye roll reflex is running out of patience, Jake."

He chuckled. "How was your birthday?"

"It was long. You should have come though, Alice came home, and she brought someone with her."

"She finally got a boyfriend?"

"A girlfriend, actually... and two boyfriends she didn't bring with her."

"And your dad actually let her go back to school?"

"She's an adult, he can't exactly stop her."

"Have you forgotten that I've seen and felt what you can do?"

I flinched slightly at the memory his words brought up. It had been five years since our one and only date and I still wasn't sure if it had been my decision, or the spirit of Edward, that had caused me to attack him with the ghost of a bear at the end when he'd kissed me.

Of course, that had also been when I'd found out he was a shape-shifter and could turn into a giant wolf.

"I'm more powerful than my father, more powerful than any of my ancestors, truthfully." The only one who'd been stronger was Edward, and possibly any male cousin across the pond in the same generation as me, but I wasn't even familiar with any of my European relatives, though I knew there were some.

He glanced toward his little sister for a moment before looking back to me. "That still doesn't make sense to me."

"It's how our gift is passed down. I'm sure our line dates back thousands of years, but we can only trace back twenty-four generations behind mine. Our magic gradually weakens over the course of every four generations, and then becomes exponentially more powerful on the fifth. Since I'm the fifth, fifth generation, I'm the most powerful necromancer on this side of the world. The only people who'd be more powerful would be my brother if he were still alive and any male cousins I have in Europe in this same generation."

"What kind of magic? It isn't like ours. Our skips a generation." Jules looked up at me in curiosity.

"We're not supposed to talk about our powers, Jules. You know that." Jake scolded immediately.

"But she's talking about hers." She stuck her lip out in a pout.

I focused on her. "That's because your big brother is an idiot and wanted to talk about my gift in front of you. Don't worry about my gift though as it's not something you need to be concerned about. But he's right. Your gift, like mine, is sacred, and shouldn't be spoke of openly. There are a lot of normal humans in this world who would either fear you and try to kill you as a result, or possibly be dangerously intrigued by you and want to experiment on you."

"But I want to know."

I looked at Jake, and he shrugged slightly.

"Trust me, sis, you definitely don't. What she does is freaky."

I narrowed my eyes at him, barely resisting the urge to say, 'And what you do, isn't?' in the most scathing voice possible.

Jules crossed her arms over her chest, still clutching her drink in one hand, as she stomped her foot.

Jake sighed. "We better get going if we're going to make it to Seattle and back today."

"Where are you going to in Seattle?"

"The brat wants to see the zoo."

"And you're going to get in while you forgot your money at home, how?"

Jake looked around all of a sudden. "Uh, gotta go." He took Jules arm in his hand as he quickly left.

I shook my head.

…

The rest of my day was just as the first four hours had been. Slow. But once the day was over, I shut the shop down, dumped the remaining coffee from the pots, cleaned the tables and floor, and loaded the dishwasher.

Finally, I carefully packed the leftover goodies in four different boxes. The first was to go to the police station, the second to my parents and little sisters, the third to the local fire department, and the fourth I'd keep for myself.

Once they were packed, I headed out to my car and got in with my packages so I could deliver them.

I drove through town, stopping briefly at both the fire department and the police station to drop those off, but drove past my parents' house and straight to the edge of town, not parking until I got to the town graveyard.

Getting out, I looked around to make sure I was alone before walking down the path and straight to the section where my ancestors were buried.

I closed my eyes for a moment, centering myself and feeling the earth around me, scenting the natural smells of decay and rot in the air before I slowly raised my hands toward the sky, feeling the power flowing out of my fingers.

At first, the air was deathly silent, not even any crickets or birds sounding, but I continued to wait with my head bowed slightly.

"Why did you summon me?" a voice snapped angrily without any warning.

My eyes snapped open to look at the elderly woman with wrinkles, narrowed eyes, and almost white hair.

AN: I'm still working out the flow of this story so I apologize that the chapter wasn't longer. My hope is that once I know more of the details of how this story will fully go, the average chapter will be about 3k or so. But for now, this chapter contained important info... and stopping here was necessary because I'm evil like that.