Hi everyone! I want to start by saying that I know you all are wonderful and I'm absolutely terrible. I really did intend to update sooner. In my defense I was grounded and Breaking Dawn came out (it was AMAZING) and I had more summer homework than you could ever imagine and then school started so I've been pretty busy. Anyway, I'm done with my excuses now. I want to thank all of you SOOOOOOOOOO much for all of your really great reviews. You're the best! I hope you enjoy chapter 17!

I headed upstairs to see Emily. She looked much more civilized with combed hair and clean clothes. She was staring at herself in the mirror as if she'd never seen her reflection before. Although, I guess the new face would take some adjusting to.

"Juana said you wanted to see me?" I said when I entered the room.

"Should I be doing this?" she asked immediately. "I mean this vampire thing really isn't suitable for a vampire hunter," she paused and then corrected herself, "former vampire hunter."

"It's not like you're going to be killing anybody," I tried to sooth her. "Anthony and his brothers will help you." She made a face at my words. "What?" I asked.

"How well do you know them?" she asked carefully. "Why do you trust them? I know they've said they haven't done anything evil, but anyone could say that."

It took great feats of effort to not be angry and remember she was going through a tough time. "They've already helped you this much haven't they?"

"I know, but I've spent my whole life being taught and believing that they're pure evil…" she trailed off lost in her own thoughts.

I wondered if she heard the hypocrisy in her words. "You do know that you're a vampire now right?"

To my horror she started crying. I was never the most comforting of people. And I definitely never knew what the right things to say were. "Emily it'll be okay. Everything will be fine," I repeated the words over and over while her tears continued to fall freely.

"No it won't," she said after a while. "My own parents would have me dead if they knew what I was."

I didn't know what to say and I was certain my empty words weren't doing much so I just sat with her in companionable silence until she calmed down. When she seemed to relax a little, I started to explain myself. "Anthony and his brothers have been here for a while now. They haven't caused one bit of trouble. Their record is so spotless that the hunters have all but forgotten about them. I've been dating Anthony for a month now. Believe me, you can trust them."

She bit her lip. "Okay, I guess I don't really have a choice. But I still have no idea how I'm going to do this. I've lived my whole life thinking of them as the 'eternally damned' and whatnot. Now I'm one of them."

"You're not damned. Things are just different now," I said still trying to comfort her.

She sighed and continued to stare at herself in the mirror. "We should go downstairs now, right?"

"Yeah, you can meet Anthony's brothers," I said.

She nodded. "Hey, who's that bitter chick that keeps hanging around all the time? She looks a little familiar…"

"Oh, she's Juana. Anthony and his brothers knew her from a long time ago. She's kind of overextended her stay. I've learned the best thing to do is ignore her."

"But she's not a good vampire, I mean that's obvious. Doesn't she cause trouble?" Emily worried.

"No, well actually, yes she does cause trouble, but not the kind you're thinking about. One of the rules Anthony and his brothers have when other vamps stay with them is no killing humans," I assured her.

"Okay, I guess I should go meet them now." She looked impossibly nervous. It wasn't all that surprising. She'd been a very formidable hunter, having to meet with vampires on friendly terms was all but impossible for her to imagine.

Anthony, Eric, Mark, and Juana were all muttering to each other. Their conversation stopped the instant they realized Emily and I were in the room.

When Eric saw Emily he his eyes widened a bit and he jumped up to meet her. In turn, she recoiled from his sudden movement. He stopped abruptly and put a very friendly smile on his face. "Hello, I'm Eric Carson," he introduced himself holding out his hand.

Very tentatively, Emily shook it. "I'm Emily Sanders," she said. I was very proud of her; she even managed a small smile.

Mark stood up too. "Mark Carson," he said, "nice to meet you."

She nodded. "You too."

Juana was scrutinizing Emily from head to toe. "I'll be expecting those clothes back," she said.

Anthony glared at her. "Don't worry about it," I said to Emily. "I'll bring you some of my clothes until you can go shopping."

She nodded. Her body seemed to become more and more tense as the seconds passed by. I also noticed that Eric seemed unable to keep his eyes off of her.

I glanced at my watch. "I think I should go home now." I looked at Emily. "I really wish I didn't have to leave you alone tonight."

She gave me a brave smile. "Don't worry about it. I'll be fine. I have your phone number if I need to call you or I could always just teleport –"

She stopped talking. If a hunter turned into a vampire, that hunter lost his or her powers.

She composed her face and gave another small smile. "I'll be fine," she repeated, only this time it sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that fact.

I gave her a hug before I walked to the door. "I'm really glad you're okay," I said. "Don't worry, for now I'll make sure no one finds you and we'll figure something out from there."

Anthony followed me to the foyer. "She'll be fine," he promised me.

I nodded. "Life just keeps getting more and more difficult," I said.

He pulled me into his arms and kissed my cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow."

I teleported home and found my sisters in the midst of making plans to look for Emily.

"I think we need to stop thinking about the possibility that she's dead," Olivia was saying. "It's been how long now? We still haven't found her."

Nicole was shaking her head. "Even if she's dead, what about the body? Vampires don't usually hide hunters' bodies when they kill them."

"Both of you make a good point, but the only thing we can be sure of is that we don't have enough information to make any assumptions," Cheryl said.

"This is hopeless, we have nothing to work with," Olivia complained.

"So do you want to give up then?" Nicole asked coldly.

"I want to do something else besides teleporting around the world aimlessly to try and find someone who can't be found," Olivia said exasperated.

"Relax guys, maybe you need a break Olivia," Cheryl stopped the fight. "There's still that vampire at Nicole and Evelyn's school who needs to be dealt with. I'd almost forgotten about him. Ethan reminded me today."

"Hey, guys," I interrupted them.

"Evelyn, do you want to help Olivia with that vamp from your school or do you want to help us find Emily?" Cheryl asked me.

Hmm, hunt down my boyfriend to the death or find my newly turned vampire friend who would be killed the instant the hunters found out about her? Interesting choice.

"I'm really tired and I have a lot of homework," I said vaguely, hoping that my excuses weren't too lame.

Nicole was watching me strangely. "You want to do homework in stead of hunting?"

"Well I don't want to," I corrected. "I don't know, I think I just need a break."

"What've you been doing lately?" Olivia asked suspiciously. "You haven't been around the house much, and Ethan said he hasn't been seeing you much."

I sighed. Of course Ethan would've noticed that we weren't hanging out as much as we used to. I was going to have to make it up to him…

"I know what you're doing," Nicole said.

With some effort I was able to keep my face perfectly blank. She couldn't really know the truth. "What?"

"You've been avoiding Ethan," she said. I made my face fall with a you-got-me look of guilt plain on my face. She smiled triumphantly.

"I just can't believe you two haven't started going out yet," Cheryl murmured, scanning a map to try and decide where to look for Emily next.

"Oh. My. God. Will you people please just listen to me? I do not now, nor will I ever like Ethan like that. He's not my type," I said hoping that I was getting my point across.

"So then what is your type?" Olivia wondered. "You've had what, all of zero boyfriends?"

My type? A hot, brown haired, blue eyed vampire they intended to kill as soon as possible. Of course, I didn't say that, I merely shrugged and wished they would drop the subject. From the look on Olivia's face it didn't look like I was going to get my wish.

Fortunately, at that moment, my mom teleported into the room. "Lucas is back," she said.

My sisters and I looked at each other worriedly. "How do you know?" Cheryl asked.

"He murdered two girls near that Pizza Hut by Rick's house," my mom answered. "Now, listen to me. I want you all to be very careful when you go out. If at all possible, hunt in groups or pairs. The Administratio thinks that he could stay around for a while."

We nodded. "Are you going to hunt him?" I asked.

"Yes, and I want you all to put your search for Emily on hold for a while," she said.

As a group we frowned. "Why?" Cheryl asked.

"Just listen to me," and with those final words she walked out of the room with an air of mystery.

"I wonder if she knows anything new about Emily?" Cheryl mused.

I began to worry. What if the Administratio knew about her being a vampire? I tried to calm myself down. Surely they couldn't know everything. But they could suspect…

"She probably does," said Olivia.

"Maybe she thinks it's too gory for us," Nicole speculated. The rest of us gave her a look of disbelief. "It was just a thought," Nicole defended herself. "But yeah, I know, not likely…"

Ava Sinclair was a wonderful woman, and an absolutely amazing hunter. But she wasn't exactly known for her tenderness. Hunters' children led anything but sheltered lives.

My cell phone rang interrupting my troubled thoughts. A glance at the caller ID told me it was Ethan. I answered quickly remembering my promise to myself to make up for basically ignoring him for a month.

"Hey Ethan," I said.

"Hey, what's up? Did you hear about Lucas?" he asked.

"Yeah, my mom just told me," I said.

"You want to go hunting?" he asked the question tentatively. Had I really been rejecting him that much?

"Sure," I said enthusiastic. It had been a long time since I'd been out on a regular hunting trip where everything went as planned.

"Cool, I'll meet you at the mall in ten minutes," he said the relief and surprise at my enthusiasm clear in his voice.

"Okay," I agreed, "see you there."

I teleported to the mall soon after that. I did some window shopping while I waited for him to show up. It wasn't very long after that I spotted Anthony.

He was with Juana who had numerous shopping bags in her hands. His face was annoyed as he followed her around. I remembered his and his brothers' rules about not letting Juana go anywhere by herself. When he saw me his lips turned up in a smile. Juana, however, did not look as pleased.

"Hi," he said to me. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing really, just waiting for Ethan." I saw his eyebrows pull together for about half a second before he composed his face.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"Juana wanted to go shopping," he said miserably. We both looked at her standing about twenty feet away tapping her foot impatiently.

"Aw, I'm sorry," I reached out and playfully patted his shoulder.

He took my hand and kissed it. He kept it to his lips and then he kissed my wrist.

"Hey, I needed to tell you," I said suddenly remembering. "I think some hunters might suspect that Emily's been turned into a vampire, but I don't know for sure. Either way, my mom asked me and my sisters to not look for her for a while. And if their focus isn't on Emily it'll go back to you, which could lead to Emily and you dying. And speaking of Emily where is she?" I looked around wildly.

He put one finger over my lips. "Would you please relax? I can take care of myself. Emily's with Eric, she's fine. Listen, if your family becomes a problem I'll just move farther away."

I frowned. "I don't want you to move."

He smiled. "We don't need to worry about that now." His lips weren't over mine for more than two seconds before we both pulled away sensing another presence.

Standing not so far away Ethan was staring at us dumbfounded.