Hello all! I want to begin by apologizing, I know you were all upset by the evil and terrible cliffhanger that I left at the end of the last chapter. I actually wasn't planning on updating until after my big exams, but I felt so bad that I decided that since I came home early today I should update. What I SHOULD have been doing was studying, but I put that off for you guys (this is the part where you should all feel special). Thankyou sooo very much to those of you who reviewed, you guys are amazing. Enjoy the 2000+ word chapter that I wrote just for you guys. Just a reminder, reviews are wonderful. I hope you like it!

Lucas, the vampire that killed my father, was standing there grinning with his hands in his pockets. He looked at Nicole casually, waiting for her to do something. I was still invisible.

"Hmm which Sinclair sister are you?" he teased Nicole lightly. "Couldn't be Cheryl, she would have attacked me by now, definitely not Olivia, that girl has way too much pent up anger. So that means you're one of the younger ones. Nicole, correct?"

Nicole, at first startled by his appearance, regained her composure. She gripped the handle of her knife and stared at him with hawk eyes, taking in his every movement.

"Why are you here?" she asked him.

He grinned. "Don't tell me you're not happy to see me. I was so looking forward to it. Besides I think your mother will be pleased that I'm back, I heard she spent a rather long time looking for me."

Anger was boiling inside me. I wanted to kill him. He murdered my father and now here he was back, ready to taunt and threaten like the bastard he was. I just wanted to shut him up.

"How's your little sister? Evelyn's her name right? I heard she took your father's death a little hard," Lucas said.

Nicole was never one of the impulsive sisters, Olivia and I handled that title. Rather than letting him get to her she said, "Get away from me."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Since when do hunters tell their pray to leave? Don't tell me you guys are getting soft," he mocked.

His body was tenser now. He didn't plan on letting her get away. I was going to have to be the one to get us out of here. After all I was the only element of surprise that we had.

I made sure I had a firm grip on my knife, and moved as swiftly as possible toward him. My heart thrummed loudly as I walked over to him. I took a breath and held my arm back to get as much force as possible. My hand moved closer. I was about to pierce his heart.

I gasped loudly when he caught hold of me. He'd swerved the instant he felt the point of the blade against his chest. My knife made a small scratch and he grunted in pain when the poison entered his system. He was going to bite me, I raised my knife stabbing wildly first at air then finally I hit his body. He let out a pitiful screech when my knife went into his left shoulder. Nicole moved quickly to kick him and back and just as he was about to grab a hold of both of us we teleported out.

"Are you okay?" Nicole looked at me worried.

"Mhm, you?" I asked.

"Perfect," she said and then looked at my forearm. A purplish bruise had formed, outlining the marks Lucas' fingers had made when he grabbed me. She touched it lightly and in a matter of seconds my skin returned to normal color.

"We have to tell the Administratio," I said. "I wonder why he's back. Do you think he's here for something specific or is he just bored and looking for a challenge to entertain him?"

Nicole was watching me strangely. "You're not a very conceited person are you?"

"Huh?" I asked.

"Do you realize what you did? You wounded Lucas. Mom didn't get a scratch on him when she fought him. More than five other hunters died seconds after stabbing him and they didn't even make it close to his heart. You should be proud of yourself," she said smiling.

I hadn't even realized what I'd done. I'd been so caught up in other things. "I just have an upper hand with the invisibility thing. It was luck," I said trying to sound modest and keep from blushing.

"I wish I had your kind of luck," Nicole said. "Come on we have to go tell Mom. Do you know where she is?"

"I think she was meeting with the Administratio at Rick's house," I said.

"Perfect," she said, "let's go."

About twenty seconds later, we showed up at Rick's house. Rick was the youngest and newest member of the Administratio. We were so obsessed with telling them about Lucas we hadn't really thought about propriety. Normally, hunters come and go into each others homes whenever we want, but interrupting an Administratio meeting was rude and generally not condoned. It was one of those terrible times where you show up somewhere and every person in the room looks up to stare at you and wonder why you were there.

"Girls, what are you doing here?" Mom said, standing up as if ready to shoo us away, there was slight disapproval in her eye and little embarrassment.

"Sorry about this," Nicole mumbled. She wasn't used to messing up, that was my job in the family.

"It's no problem girls," Rick said. "Did you have something important to tell us or do you just need your mother?"

Thank god Rick was nice. "All of you," I said.

"Lucas is back," Nicole announced to the room.

The blood drained from my mother's face and her eyes hardened. She looked completely emotionless. There were a few gasps and some whispered words of worry, but everyone fell silent at my mother's voice.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"I took Evelyn hunting with me and he came up to us," Nicole answered.

"Ava, maybe you should sit down," Rick suggested leading Mom to a couch. "How did you girls get away?"

"Evy was invisible when he came up to us. So he didn't see and she was able to stab his arm. He was distracted enough for us to teleport back home," Nicole explained.

"You stabbed Lucas?" Patrick, another member, asked me. His voice was so full of contempt that I had to remind myself to not be indignant.

"Yeah, like Nicole said, I was invisible so…" I didn't feel so bad when I glanced at my mother who was looking at me with pride.

"Very good," she said. She seemed to have come out of her shock. "Okay this means that we have a lot to do." She looked at me, "Did you get the knife in deep?"

"About two inches I think," I answered.

"Okay good that means that the poison's in his bloodstream. It wasn't enough to kill him, but I think that he'll be weaker for the next week or two depending on how strong the poison was on Evelyn's knife," Mom continued.

"It was the strongest we have at home," Nicole put in. "I was the one who coated the knives."

­­­­"Okay, so we'll come up with a plan to track him, and hopefully kill him within the next week," my Mom decided.

"That sounds good," said another of the Administrario, Aurora.

"We should also put a ban on younger hunters around this area," Rick said. At his words my heart deflated, I was already on a ban, what if they stopped me from hunting altogether? But I didn't have to worry because he said, "the ones under sixteen shouldn't be going out. Even with a chaperone, it's too dangerous. You might want to lift Evelyn's ban though, wounding Lucas was quite the accomplishment. She managed to save herself and her sister. I'd say she's ready to be on her own again," he said with a wink at me.

I grinned a little, but waited to hear what my mother would say. "I agree. Good job, Evelyn. You don't need any more chaperones." Then she said to Nicole, "You two should head home. Make sure to tell Cheryl and Olivia what's going on."

My smile was stretched wide across my face. "Okay, come on Evelyn," Nicole said and we teleported back to our house.

"Congratulations, you're free," she said when we were back in the living room. She played with her wristwatch, and her eyebrows rose. "Wow I didn't even realize it was after midnight. You should probably go to bed; I'm going to do the same after I tell Cheryl and Olivia what happened."

I nodded and headed up the stairs. It felt wrong to be happy. But I was free! Even though I owed my new hunting independence to the freak that killed my father, I was a teenage girl, I couldn't help it. It was also wrong to be in a good mood about my vampire boyfriend, but what was I supposed to do if my teenage hormones didn't feel like listening to logic.

I ended up skipping off to bed where I slept like a baby. It was the best kind of sleep there is, hours and hours of dreamless, peaceful sleep. Of course, it had to be ruined by the idea of school the next morning.

After getting ready, I went downstairs where I was greeted with praise from Cheryl. "Good job last night. I heard your ban was lifted too, good for you," she said with a smile. I thought it was really nice of her to say and I was going to thank her but then she said, "And Nicky told me Ethan asked you out. What are you going to do?"

"Ugh nothing, he's just my friend," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say."

"Why did Nicole tell you anyway? Don't I get an ounce of privacy in this house?" I asked.

"Nope," Olivia said coming in to the kitchen. "Whatever privacy there was that was left to be dished out was split amongst your big sisters. You're the youngest, so we decided you don't need it."

I glared at her. "This is why I don't tell you guys anything."

Nicole came in the room, but she shushed me before I could yell at her for telling Cheryl and Olivia about Ethan. "Don't get mad, it just kind of slipped out, but I did do you a humongous favor to make up for it."

"What's that?" I asked.

"I called Emily and Jack. It makes sense for them to be here with Lucas back and everything, they're really good hunters. Anyways, Emily said that she'd come when we got home from school, so you're off the hook with Ethan." She said.

"Thank god!" I said with relief.

As usual, I rode with Nicole to school. In the car I could feel my nervous excitement about seeing Anthony. We'd have to meet in private; if anyone – like Ethan – saw us together, I would most likely be killed viciously and without mercy by my mother.

Still though, stupidly giddy with excitement, I went to my locker to shove my books into it. I glanced at my watch. Ethan would show up to school in about two minutes.

I felt someone come behind me and put their arms around me. "Anthony!" I exclaimed, grinning.

"Hey," he said with his perfect smile. He leaned down and kissed my cheek lightly and was about to kiss my lips when I stopped him, looking up and down the hall for a possible spy.

"If somebody sees me…" I said and instantly a wave of worry came over me and I had to untangle myself from Anthony troubled that somebody could come at any minute and see us together.

"You're very paranoid," he observed.

I nodded my head vigorously. "You're going to have to learn to deal with it," I said, my eyes still trained at the hallway entrance. I looked back at him to see a big grin on his face. "What?"

"If I have to learn to put up with you, it means you're going to keep me around for a while," he said.

"Well, as long as I don't get bored… I guess you can stay," I teased.

He kissed me before I could stop him again. He pulled back and said, "Exciting enough for you?"

"Not bad," I said with a smile. "But still, Ethan comes to meet me every morning at my locker and—"

"I know, I know, if somebody sees you with me the world come to a pitifully destructive and painful, dreary end," he said.

"You were the one who suggested that we keep this a secret," I reminded him.

"Only because I know how paranoid you are. If you want to go public I'm all for it," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "I can't do that."

"I know," he softly, understanding. "This is why I said we keep it a secret. Now I'm assuming you want me to leave?"

"Well, I don't want you to…" I said.

He smiled and kissed my cheek again before saying goodbye and walking off.

I have to dish out praise to ilovetwilight99 for guessing right about the vamp being Lucas. I was very impressed. Just to warn you guys, I won't be updating againg until after May 15. Understand that if another new chapter is posted before that date it will be a miracle. Also, I am no superwoman, so even though I will try to get chapter 12 posted May 16, that may not necessarily happen. :(