Yesh…I DID update. Hey peoplez I'm so happy you reviewed!! runs in crazy circles Sorry that took me longer than the last one....i SWEAR i don't know what the hell is going on with me here. Im getting lost! XD

I wanna thank everyone for reviewing. Seriously this time. I mean I AM happy yall reviewed but when I saw that 4 people put me on Author Alert and ALL of them were reviewers for this story I decided that no matter how long it takes I wanna finish this story for you all. Thank you sniffle thank you for having faith in me!!!

I have the overall plot for the story and what will happen in the END it's just the beginning and in between that I'm lost. Ah, the curse of an author. All the major parts but the minor ones are the ones that we also need.

Y'know I forgot something important!

screams FOR ALL THE IDIOTS OUT THERE SCREAMIN', "BLASPHEMY!!!! THE MEDIATOR SERIES DOESN'T BELONG TO ANA-MALIA!!!".........I DO (aw hell i WISH) NOT OWN THIS SERIES YA CRYBABIES! screams

acbworm--- Yup, I've read all of Tamora Pierce's series. The Immortals Series, Alanna the Lioness, Protector of the Small, The Circle of Magic, the Circle Opens…yup yup. All good series. It's so cool how some of the series connect! Her stories thoroughly rock.

So I knew I was making a character who was similar to Nealan of Queenscove. It's just so hot when a guy has green or blue or gold eyes with normal hair. But no worries, it's just his looks

monkeys-r-us: I DID WHAT?! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!! :'(.....okay now I believe it and feel like a monkey, monkeys-r-us. (no offense)

Kay, now I will let you all rest in pieces and give u the story.

Killin' Me Softly:

Chapter 4: Neal

I looked to the place where Jesse sat and saw he was just as surprised as I was. I had a Mediator for a stepbrother. Whoa. Big surprise. But I had to be sure. I mean, I could blurt out, 'Oh, I see! So you can see the dead too! By the way, did you know that I've risen from the dead before and exorcised 13-sum ghosts?' I may have been deemed dumb, but my GPA isn't THAT low.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about. What guy?" I tried to keep my voice cocky, but you know me. It didn't work. Instead my voice cracked suddenly. That's not good! Cracking of the voice is the first sign of a person trying, keyword there, people: TRYING, to lie. (Second step is scratching of the nose btw)

Neal rolled his green eyes at me and ran his fingers through his hair. "That guy on the bay window seat. Him," he indicated Jesse.

Okay, I'm not gonna stop yet until I'm sure he's talkin about Jesse, I thought. "Neal, dude. There isn't anyone there. What're you looking at? All I see is..." I stopped and scratched my nose. This doesn't get any better, I swear.

Neal frowned and strode over to the bay seat near Jesse, who stepped out of the way holding his book. When Jesse moved I noticed a picture frame propped up near the window. Oh.

Neal turned to me and held it up, "THIS dude. Who's that? What's wrong with you? You okay?" I told him that the man in the picture was my father. Inside, I kicked myself. He'd been looking at the picture frame the whole time while I was flapping away with my lips! He nodded slowly and looked at the picture with an odd look on his face.

Neal wasn't a Mediator. We have a false alarm here. He had only been talking about the picture frame of my dad. I'd been so freaked and ready for a war of words I forgot to use that thing that would have probably been rattling in my head if my head were made of wood. Then my mom called me from downstairs.

"SUZIE, HONEY!! COME HELP ME WITH THIS PLEASE!"

My stepbrother raised an elegant eyebrow at me, "Suzie? Cute name," he chuckled. I smirked at him, "Thanks. Just don't get used to callin' me that. I don't take it from anyone else except my..."

"HON'!" my mom checked to make sure I heard her. I yelled back and told Neal to come down with me. I didn't need him nosing around my room just yet after he'd moved in. And hell, you never know what guys can get into alone even if one is dead and the other alive. Then I was gone.

Neal waited for Suze to go down the stairs. When she wasn't looking he took another glance at the picture frame again. The picture of her dad. His new little sister looked just like her dad. Neal had never had the chance to know his dad. Never.

He put the picture frame back where he'd found it and looked at it again from where it lay. Jesse stood on the side watching Neal silently as the guy started to leave. Jesse took his spot back on the bay seat. Suddenly Neal hesitated at the door and smiled. Jesse frowned and watched the guy leave the room and for the third time, Jesse wondered how much Susannah's new brother really knew.

It turns out we're having more quesadillas for dinner that night. It seemed like it was turning into a tradition to have quesadillas for dinner. But this particular night was to celebrate the arrival of "the new baby", Neal.

While Neal sat at the table I was off flipping quesadillas at the stove like a pro.

"SUZIE! You don't have to flip the quesadillas so much, honey. They're tortillas, no pizzas," my mother laughed. Okay, so I was surprisingly new at flipping quesadillas. New enough to burn them pretty badly.

My mother rolled her eyes and told me to try again and put another tortilla in the pan and then went to the pantry for more tortillas. Obviously she doubted I'd get it on the next flip. I bit my lip in concentration. Flip flip flip flip…hisssssssss. THAT can't be good.

Another tortilla dropped into the pan and I stared at it forlornly. Another one. Dude, I totally sucked at flipping tortillas. Then I felt someone wrap their hand around mine and I was flipping…tortillas.

"You're too tense. Ease up, Suze," Neal said in my ear. "Flipping this things is a piece of cake. Ready? One. Two. Three. Flip. Now we wait."

He let go of my hand and we stood there waiting, "Hey, a guy cook in the family. Shocker. You like to cook a lot or something?"

He laughed, "Not as much as you'd like to THINK. But I had to do all the cooking before. Oh they're finished!" and he flipped the tortillas onto a plate just as the rest of the people came into the kitchen.

"Wow! Those tortillas smell good!" Doped inhaled.

My mother smiled at me and then I pointed to Neal, "Courtesy of Neal here."

Neal grinned, "I only helped her. She pretty much made them herself. Let's eat already, cuz er…I'm like, really hungry." And so we ate.

Things went pretty well after that. We ate. Talked. Ate some more. And talked about Neal. He mainly talked about what kinds of things he liked to do but tried to avoid talking about us. No matter how we tried to learn more about him, he'd always find ways to try and learn more about US. We were all getting along fine. I was actually starting to like him.

Until that night.

Okay check it out. It's night time and I'm asleep, dreaming away of Jesse. Really nice...And then somebody wakes me up. The alarm clock, I can take, but..ironically it was Jesse. And he was pointing to the window, "Susannah, he is..." A guy in a black leather jacket was sneaking out through my window!

I stood up and grabbed the first thing I could find, which just so happened to be a used paper towel tube that I had decorated in kindergarten. I stuck the tube (decorated with cotton and sequins) into the guy's back, "Freeze right there buddy or I'll stick you!" Yeah, so I went a little far with the 'stick-this-thing-through-you' thing. But it worked, 'cuz he froze.

"That's right! Now turn around."

The guy turned around slowly with a blase look on his face. And believe it or not, it was NEAL!

"What are you looking at, Suze? You never seen a guy try to sneak out at night to hang with his friends?" he sneered. I frowned and he arched an elegantly shaped eyebrow. Ahh! He plucks!

"Hell no! Not out my window, I haven't!"

"Well you know what Suze? I don't GIVE a damn WHAT you've seen or haven't seen, so get that stupid thing out of my back and get the hell out of my way before I MAKE you," he growled beginning to lose his patience.

I frowned. Whoa. What happened to that nice guy who I met this afternoon before this night?

"You gonna move, Suze or do we have to do this the hard way?"

I made up my mind. Like hell I was gonna let this jerk push ME aside. Because I am a MEDIATOR! I am determined not to let Neal get the better of ME!

I growled in my throat and whacked Neal in the back of the head with my 'potential weapon'. That was a no for HIM! Then I jumped him. For a good few seconds he twisted this way and that to get me off of his back. Fat chance. I held onto the guy like a cowboy at the rodeo. But in the end, he managed to flip me onto the floor on my back. NEAL: One, SUZE: Zip. I glared up at him and then he hauled me onto his back.

"I TOLD you if you didn't get outta my way, I'd do it myself!" he grunted as he held me over his back. I wasn't ready to give up. I bit his hand and dug my nails into the nubs of his fingernails.

Neal let out a yell of pain. Good news: I got him to let go of me. Bad news: He dropped me out the window.

I rolled down the roof of my own house. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream. I'm strong. Well, okay. I wasn't just about to have the neighbors look out the window and wonder, 'Why the hell is that girl going down her roof? Teenagers. The things they do for fun.'

Fun my ass. Let's just say I got a couple of shingles shoved somewhere down my pajama pants. Then I hit the grass. And to top it all off, JUST when I thought it was over, I rolled back into that hole that they dug Jesse out of last month. Well, by some "happy" coincidence it was turned into a jacuzzi...an empty one. So I hit solid plastic.

I saw stars, no kidding. That jacuzzi's no joke! I don't know how I could have thought that Neal was cool. Yeah, I actually liked him a bit. Now, I don't know. I don't know what I thought. I started to black out.

I am a MEDIATOR! I am DETERMINED! I am also officially in need of both the chiropractor and serious….HELP!!!

Ooh! The dude's kinna bad. I didn't mean to make him so bad. I actually like him!!

But I have a thing for writing people yelling at each other, i dunno why X.X but it's kinna fun, cuz it's fun to make comebacks and then....yeah i'm a horrible little person.