"Please keep an eye on her," Edward opened the glass door and let his sister pass through. "I won't be able to concentrate on the hunt if she goes to see Jacob."
"I promise to keep her out of trouble," Ruby patted her brother's back, climbing down the five steps of the back patio. "That includes her going to meet up with her wolf friend. But I can't save her from becoming Alice's human mannequin."
"No one is safe from that," he smirked.
Ruby agreed with her brother. "At least this time you Carlisle and Garrett are going as well. They will stop you from finishing your hunt early."
"I still don't like that he will be coming along," Edward glared at the nomad, who was currently making a bet with Emmett on who will be able to tackle down a bear first.
"Would you rather him stay with me the whole weekend then?" she grinned at him.
"No."
"That's what I thought. Plus, Carlisle could help him a lot more on hunting animals than I could," Ruby crossed her arms on her chest, still observing the nomad. "And maybe keep strategizing about the newborn problem."
Edward hummed, shoving his hands inside the pockets of his jacket. "Right," he turned towards his sister. "Bella wants to go to the University in Alaska," he mumbled. "She thinks it will be better and will help with her transformation."
She nodded. "Makes sense. Not a big population compared to other places we have been." Ruby smirked at her brother. "I can scare her a bit if she asks questions about being a vampire."
Edward laughed. "That still won't stop her."
"True."
"Can we go already?" Emmett bounced on his feet, impatiently. "I want to win this bet."
"You mean I will win the bet," Garrett told him.
Rosalie and Ruby rolled their eyes.
The nomad walked towards Ruby ignoring the glare that Edward was throwing at him. He smiled at Ruby and winked at her. "Try not to miss my company for the next couple of days."
"I'm going to be so bored here," Ruby told him in a deadpan voice. "What will I do without you?"
"Ouch," Jasper and Emmett snickered.
Garrett placed his right hand on his chest. "My heart."
Ruby shook her head, giving him a soft smile. "I'm betting on you to tackle the first bear."
Garrett grinned at her. He took her left hand and gave her a kiss on the back of it. "And I will honor that bet."
"You better," Ruby chuckled, ignoring her brother's growl. "You better go before my brother decides to murder you here on the spot."
"I'll take my chances."
"Not surprised."
Before they left, Garrett sent a another wink towards Ruby, which Edward saw and gave him the 'death glare' at the nomad. Ruby returned the wink with a wave of her hand before he disappeared into the forest with the others.
"They are going to have a fun weekend," Rosalie sarcastically said.
"We never been to Tokyo," Alice frowned, as she pulled clothes from her closet. "But it is on my list."
Bella drummed her fingers against her knee. "What other places do you want to go?"
"Ireland," Ruby folded the clothes that her sister was throwing towards her. "It looks beautiful from the pictures I've seen online. Not mention the festivals they have."
Bella nodded and started to fold a blouse. "What did Edward look like when he was human?"
Ruby gave Bella a surprised look at the sudden change of question. She tilted her head a bit to the side. "I have pictures if you want to see it?"
"You do?!" Bella grinned.
Ruby chuckled, stood up and left Alice's bedroom. After some time, she returned, holding three pictures in her hand. She passed them to Bella so she could see it, sitting across from her. Alice quickly sat down next to Bella and also stared down at the first picture. In the picture, there were two small children. The boy and the girl were both sitting on a couch, not smiling towards the camera. The boy was wearing what looked like a sailor suit and the girl was wearing a dress.
"Oh my god!" Alice laughed. "Look at those cheeks!"
"How old were you two?"
Ruby squinted her eyes, trying to remember that day. "I was five and he was four. Father had to travel and he was going to be away for a lot longer than before. She wanted a picture of us so he can carry with him on his travels."
Bella switched to the second picture. On it, there were a couple. A tall man wearing a suit and glasses. The woman standing next to him was wearing a nice looking dress that reached the floor and puffed sleeves.
"Are these your parents?" Bella looked up at the dark haired vampire.
Ruby nodded. "Edward inherited the color of eyes and hair. I had father's hair color and mother's eyes."
"What color were her eyes?"
"Green."
"They were newlyweds there," Ruby nodded towards the picture. "They've been married for a few weeks."
Alice nudged the picture and Bella flipped it to the last one. On this one, the four members of the Masen family were in it. The two teenagers were sitting on chairs while the two adults were standing behind them. The father had his hand on his daughter's shoulder, while the mother had her hand on her son's shoulder.
"I can see the resemblance. You look more like your mother and Edward looks more like his father, minus the mustache," Bella smiled. "He was still good looking as a human."
"You should have seen the attention he got," Ruby chuckled. "A lot of women approached him but he always politely declined their attention. He was more preoccupied with the war than settling down with a woman."
"When was this taken?"
Ruby grimaced. "A month before father got sick. It's the last picture we ever took as a family. He died in the first wave. We got it during the second."
"Did she die next?"
"Yes, she was the one that asked Carlisle to help Edward and save him."
"She didn't ask for you to be turned as well?"
Ruby shrugged, "She probably thought I died."
"Where you turn after Edward, then?"
The vampire nodded. "I remember Carlisle telling me everything was going to be alright and he would save me just like he did with my brother. Next thing I know, I felt like I was burning," she shivered, remembering the agonizing pain for three days. She was mostly unconscious for the most part but whenever she was awake, the pain was unbearable."
Alice hummed in agreement.
"When I opened my eyes the first time I was turned, Carlisle and Edward were staring at me from across the room. Carlisle explained everything that happened and he did his best to keep our thirst under control," Ruby snorted and shook her head. "Of course, it wasn't easy for Carlisle to keep an eye on two newborn vampires away in the city so we left."
After a moment of silence, Bella asked, "Do you ever regret being turned?"
"It's a bit complicated," Ruby frowned but then smiled slightly at her brother's girlfriend. " I learned new things, traveled and gained a family at the end. But like Rosalie, I rather have died as mortal than been ripped apart and be burned as a vampire. Or draining the blood from a human"
"Nice one," Alice rolled her eyes, noticing how pale Bella turned.
Ruby laughed and patted Bella's arm. "You will be fine after you have your thirst under control."
The stars were brighter tonight as Ruby took a deep breath of the fresh cold night air. After going down memory lane with Alice and Bella, Rosalie had stepped in Alice's bedroom and told Bella that the pizza had arrived. Not long after Bella ate and took a shower, she fell asleep on the bed that Esme and Rosalie had put in a bed in Edward's bedroom.
Alice and Rosalie had cleaned up everyone's closet, unfortunately that also includes her closet, and started shopping for clothes online. Rosalie was looking for charity organizations where they could donate the clothes to.
She was too deep in thought that she was startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped slightly and looked up to see Esme.
"Sorry if I frightened you," she smiled apologetically at her adoptive daughter. She sat on the stairs, next to the eighteen year old.
"It's fine," Ruby smiled slightly at her. "I was just thinking too much."
"Of your human life?"
"Yeah," she scratched the top of her head. "Down memory lane tonight with all the questions Bella had." She didn't mind answering the questions Bella had during the night. Even Rosalie laughed at the one when Edward and her got scared playing with a jack in the box when they were small. "She might still have questions once she wakes up in the morning."
"It was nice of you to show her the pictures."
"She was going to find out about them sooner or later," Ruby snickered. Rosalie had laughed hard at Edward's chubby cheeks when he was small, while Esme looked fondly at all the pictures. "Wait until she finds out about the house in Chicago that Edward and I 'inherit' from time to time."
"Be nice," Esme chided the eighteen year old.
"It's Edward's turn to claim the house, not me," Ruby chuckled. "He has to explain it to her. And as soon she finds out that it is our childhood home, she would want to visit it."
"She wanted for you to be saved too."
Ruby blinked at her adopted mother.
"I heard the story from Edward's room."
The eighteen year old vampire gave her a confused look. Edward and her had already told Esme about their transformation and their human lives after she was transformed.
"There was no emotion when you talked about your mother. Why?"
Oh. Ruby understood what Esme was saying. She never really mentioned her relationship with her mother to anyone. Carlisle, besides her brother, was the only one that actually knew how her mother actually treated her. Carlisle informed her that her mother also wanted her to be saved, along with Edward. Just like Carlisle, Ruby came to the conclusion that maybe her mother thought that she died and thought that Edward was the only living member of the family. But something told her deep down, that her mother had only wanted Edward to be safe.
"Ever since I was a child, I knew Edward was my mother's favorite," she gazed up at the stars again, trying not to say anything ill towards the woman who gave birth to her . "She would pay more attention to him and spend most of her free time with him. It's one of the reasons why I was much closer to my father than her. He would come from traveling and would spend hours telling me stories about the clients that he dealt with and the sights he would see. She wasn't too pleased when he did that."
Esme grimaced, noticing the sadness in her adoptive daughter's voice and eyes.
"I don't know why she kept me at arm's length," Ruby cleared her throat and blinked, as a human would when tears want to fall from their eyes. "But I accepted it, and kept closer to my father."
Esme pulled her closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"To me, you are my mom," Ruby smiled faintly, feeling a kiss on top of her head. "And you will always be."
