When I was once again conscious, I was terrified. That hasn't happened to me since I was human. Maybe I wasn't actually a vampire, maybe I was really human, and I just had to drink blood to survive. I shook that thought out of my head. I can jump of a five story building and be okay, humans can't do that, I'm a vampire. I'm just different. This was just different. It didn't mean anything way wrong with me. Right?

"Well what are we supposed to do?!" I heard Caleb shout. I stood up off of my bed and walked out of my room.

"Maybe we should kill him?" Connor suggested. I stopped at the top of the stairs.

"The pretty girl promised me you wouldn't hurt me!" I heard the boy protest. I had to suppress my laugh. Normally I would have protested that, but I like the way he said it.

"Her name is Everleigh. And that was before you drank her blood!"

"Caleb she's the one who provoked it, remember? She knew what she was doing. Although it may not have been the wisest thing to do, she's going to be fine." Ed reassured him.

"She was right though, it's better than rats."

"Come on Lorne! Think with you head and not your stomach." Lorne gasped.

"I am! Rats are disgusting."

"Anyways, are you absolutely sure you don't remember anything Alecsander?" Ed asked.

"I don't...I don't remember, I'm sorry."

His voice cracked. If he were human, he would be crying. My heart broke for him. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to not remember anything but your name, and the voice of someone you've never met.

"I'm going to go check on her." Jonah said as I heard him stand up. I began walking down the stairs. I had stood there long enough. "Or not..."

"Nice of you to join us." Caleb snorted. "Did you have a nice nap?"

"Caleb!" Lorne scolded as he moved from the couch and over to me. "Are you alright?! How bad was your vision this time?"

"It was different than the others." I purposefully ignored his first question. "It took me out of my body for a second and lead me to the shed where Alec was." Alec's attention snapped to me when I said his name.

"I'm sorry about the whole uh...how do I put it...um...taking too much blood thing. I honestly didn't mean it." He rushed out, venom filling his eyes once more. That saddened me.

"It's okay. That wasn't the only reason I passed out, the vision probably contributed to that. I couldn't let you drain rats...too gross." A small smile ghosted his lips. I returned the gesture.

"Jonah said it was like he was speaking to you." Ed pointed to the staff that was set on the floor under the window. "He also mentioned that..."

"Let's take this one thing at a time. She just woke up."

Lorne put a hand on my back and lead me to the couch. I sat in the middle and he sat on the opposite side of me. Alec sat on the edge of the couch. I'm surprised Lorne let him sit at all, seeing as he was still all matted with dirt.

"When I was going to the shed, I heard a voice speaking to me. Alec's voice, begging me to help him."

"And you don't remember asking anyone for help? Not even in a dream?" Ed asked Alec. He shook his head. "This is rather peculiar."

"I could have told you that." Connor said. "What about the knife. He woke up the second it was pulled out? Vampires can't get stabbed. We learned that a long time ago."

"Maybe he was stabbed before he was turned?" Lorne suggested.

"I don't think so. I think the knife is enchanted." Ed scratched the top of his head.

"Great, witches." Jonah said sarcastically.

"It would make sense. I've heard of witches being able to enchant objects as such. They are very powerful though. Most witches now can't do it."

"Why not?"

"Because the witch generations loose power as time goes on. Maybe they'll have half blooded children, maybe they have a low power supply? I don't know, I'm not a witch."

"I feel like the correct term is warlock Ed, warlock." Caleb teased. I laughed quietly to myself. He smiled.

"Either way, a witch would have to either tap into magic from their ancestors, or be an ancestor to do that type of magic. So either the knife wasn't made recently, or we have a group of very powerful witches on our hands."

"Which is why they would enchant their weapons so that they were the only ones that could use them." Lorne concluded. Ed smiled at him. I could tell Ed worded it so that way Lorne would catch on and do that. He did that a lot for Lorne. It was sweet.

"Exactly."

"Then why is Evie the only one who can touch that..." Connor gestured over to the staff laying on the floor.

"She's not a normal vampire." Hunter said. He turned to me. "No offense."

"No it's fine. Normal isn't in my dictionary."

"It doesn't make much sense regardless. In order for us to get a clear assessment, we'd need a witch to touch it...just to be sure."

"Why?"

"Because this could be something else entirely, something that I'd rather not explore until we know for sure."

"What?" I asked. "What do you mean by something else?" Ed gave me a sad smile and sighed.

"I've heard things about weapons like that, that only one person in the entire world can touch...there's only five of them. There's not a lot of good stories that are associated with them. I doubt it's one of those though, it probably wouldn't be hidden in the open like that. I'm just saying we can't rule that out until we see a witch touch that." I nodded.

"We can sort through all the details of this uh, discovery later. Right now, we have to get Alec set up to stay here." Lorne said. "I bet you want to shower. You are covered in dirt Mister." He bopped Alec on the nose and helped him stand up. Lorne looked him up and down. "We are getting you a new wardrobe tomorrow."

"I'm sure we will have some clothes that will fit you for tonight." Added Ed. "He looks to be about Connor's size..."

"I'm on it!" He said enthusiastically. "Wow I've always wanted a brother!"

"What about me dipshit?!" Caleb asked.

"What about you?" Connor raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. "Come on Alec, you get to shop in Connor's closet."

"Are you sure? I don't want to be a burden..."

"It's just a spare set of clothes, it's not a big deal." Connor shrugged.

"No I mean about me staying here. Are you sure that's the best idea? I mean after what happened I..."

"Hey, don't worry about it." Caleb said.

"Yeah, seriously don't. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we're sorry that we were a bit harsh to you." Hunter added.

"In our defense, we thought you were a corpse that rose from the dead. That, and you did almost drain my sister. So that was kind of creepy, but it's all good now." Jonah grabbed the knife that was previously embedded in Alec's chest and spun it around in his fingers. "When we find who did that to you, I say we stab them with this and see what it does."

"Jonah, we are not stabbing anyone!" Mother Lorne scolded. I liked calling him that in my head sometimes, especially when he said things like this.

"Yes mother..." He must have read my mind. Twin telepathy much? Lorne groaned.

"What makes you think they'll come back?" Alec asked Jonah.

"You are alive and conscious, whoever did that to you wanted you alive, but incapacitated. Now that you aren't, they'll be back." Ed said simply. "Now go get changed, we'll sort things out later." Connor beckoned to him and the two went upstairs.

"Tomorrow we need to see how much basic knowledge he knows..." Ed trailed off.

"Why?" Lorne asked.

"Well if he's going to stay here, we need a cover story for him for school. Maybe he can be the twins' cousin?"

"Nope!" Jonah said.

"Why not?"

"Because of certain things and certain looks certain people were giving each other."

"Jonah, shut up! You don't know what you are talking about." I huffed.

"No one looks at a cousin the way the two of you looked at each other. Hunter was there, he saw it too, right Hunter?"

"Can I plead the fifth?"

"No." Jonah and I both said in unison. He sighed as Caleb chuckled.

"Look, Evie don't take it so personally here, and don't read too much into it either, but Jonah does have a point."

"Thank you!"

"Look regardless of that, they have been in the town for a while, and people know of their family history. People aren't going to believe their cousin popped out of nowhere and is all of a sudden living with us because he wanted to visit."

I flinched when Lorne said family. My mother's side of the family disowned her when they figured out who the father of her children were. They never liked my father. My father was adopted, but all of his family members live in California. Jonah and I have never met any of our family other than our parents. We couldn't go to the funeral because we were both struggling with our thirst at the time, so we just never crossed paths with either side of our so called "family."

"Alright...foreign exchange student? He does sound British. It could work."

"Ed, can't we just adopt him? I mean I'm sure he'll blend in fine, especially without the dirt." Lorne reached over me and brushed the couch off.

"That makes complications." Jonah said.

"No one asked you." I responded bitterly. I could not believe him right now. If he was suggesting that I had a crush or something on someone that I had just met, I was going to kill him. That's just ludicrous.

"I suppose so, I mean if anything were to happen..."

"Ed!" I groaned and put my head in my hands.

"If anything were to happen, I'm sure we could pull some strings and figure it out." Ed had connections, if he wanted something done he knew people who could do whatever was needed to get it done. No questions asked.

"Well as of now nothing is happening!"

"Do you want me to start talking about auras here, or do you want me to just pretend like nothing is going on with you two?" Connor asked as he entered the living room. "Alec's in the shower now."

"Thank you." Lorne said, again brushing the dirt off the couch. There wasn't much to begin with, he wasn't totally covered in it.

"No Connor, you go right ahead." Jonah raised his eyebrows at me and sat down. He patted my back. "You need a wake up call."

"Can you all shut up?! Honest to god nothing happened I just met the guy!" I shouted. That shut them up. I usually don't bother talking to them when they all gang up on me. It sucks being the only girl.

"Okay, okay Evie, no need to be so defensive." Connor held his hands up in defense. Caleb ran in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders.

"Why so serious?!"

"Can you fuck off?" I pushed him away as I stood up.

"Evie!" Lorne called after me as I ran up the stairs. I slammed the door and flopped down on my bed.

I cried, I'll admit it. It was so stupid but I did. I shouldn't be crying just because they all decided to pick on me. They probably weren't even being serious. But a part of me wondered if they were right, that there was something going on between us. It was like my vision was pulling me to him. I don't know why...it's never done that with anything before, let alone anyone. It just upset me that they all decided to jump to conclusions.

This whole situation is awful! First Charles and the others died, then I had some stupid vision, and now I'm stuck with a weapon I don't even know how to use and a guy that I'm potentially connected to somehow! All within a matter of days. This is so screwed up. To top it all off I can't even act normal for two seconds without something blowing up in my face.

I don't know how long I laid there crying for, but it was a while. I tried to muffle my sobs in my pillow, but I knew everyone in the house could hear it anyway. I wondered if Alec had heard what my "brothers" were saying about us. He probably did. Did he believe it? Maybe he thought it was as ridiculous as I did...

"Is it really?" I thought to myself.

Why can't my brain just turn off for five minutes? Honestly it was a mystery to me as to why I would always question myself. I always have, and probably always will. Just then, I heard a knock on my door. I didn't move, I didn't want to. I knew it was Lorne. I wasn't sure if I was in the mood to deal with people right now. It's not that I don't want to talk to him, I do. It's just that he's so nice about things. He always tries to cheer me up, and it doesn't work all the time. His cheeriness can get a bit much for me, especially after a lot has happened.

"Evie, can I come in?" I pushed myself deeper into my pillows. "You don't have to talk if you don't want, I just want you to listen to me for a second." I ran to the door, opened it a crack, then flipped back down in my previous position.

I heard his footsteps move across the floor and over to my bed. He sat down on the side of my bed closet to wear I was laying. Lorne didn't say anything for a while, he just stroked my hair as I continued sobbing into my pillow. It was going to be a bloody messy once I was done. I hope the blood doesn't bleed through the pillow case.

"I'm sorry, about everything. You've had a rough couple of days. I know you probably won't believe me when your brothers say that they're sorry, but they are."

"Bullshit." I mumbled. "They do this all the time. If they were really sorry, they would stop."

"They care about you, you know." I shook my head. "Yeah they do, we all do. I know that tonight's events haven't exactly been the most favorable, but this isn't a bad thing..."

"Now. This isn't a bad thing now. Give it a couple of months."

"Don't be such a pessimist. Give this a chance. Maybe you'll make a new friend."

"And what about the freaky staff? I know it doesn't look like it now, but it changes into something the grim reaper would use on a holiday." He laughed.

I flipped over and looked at the dark haired man. The small lamp I had on in my room only illuminated it a little bit, but I could still see his features pretty well. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled was enough to warm the coldest of hearts. He was a good man, with a kind soul. People like him are rare.

"We'll have to work with it then. Maybe locate the guy to return it to him, and then hope he doesn't decide it's judgement day for us all." His laugh must have been contagious.

"Do you really think this is a good thing?" I asked once we calmed down. "I mean, you aren't just saying that to make me feel better?"

"Well...the past couple of days have been shit. I think that we have to turn somethings positive at least. Just hang in there, we'll see how this goes."

"Fine. But you have to promise me if they start spewing their crap all over again, you'll let me take each one of them outside and make them touch the staff."

"Uh, no. That's unsafe. Although, I'll give you one free swear if you wanted to yell at them." He stuck his hand out. "Deal?" We shook on it.

"I take it we aren't going to school tomorrow?" Lorne shook his head, his black hair moving with him.

"Ed wants to see how much he know intellectually, see if he's fit to go to school."

"Oh god I feel bad for him..."

I remember when Jonah and I first got here, and Ed made us sit in the living room for hours doing a shit ton of "educational testing" to make sure we were fit to go back to school in the grade we were originally in. It was torture. Ed was so excited though. He tried making it into a game, but it still kind of sucked. He was so excited about it that Jonah and I just had to pretend it was the best thing ever. He would have been crushed if we didn't, I'm sure.

"He looks about you and Jonah's age. As long as Alec is up to it, we'll probably put him in school with you all. I'm going to look into the foreign exchange details later to see if we could work with that. That way we don't have to worry about anything..." I shot him a glare. "Just in case."

"What do you know?" I asked him. Whenever he said "just in case" he had a vision of something he wasn't supposed to. At least his visions didn't hurt him.

"Oh my gosh, nothing I swear! I didn't see anything from tonight happen at all! It was just as a surprise to me as it was to you. But speaking of that, you'll have to sing for me soon. We need to know if there are anymore surprises in our future."

"Are you going to the bar tomorrow?"

"Probably not. We'll have to slip out for a bit tomorrow."

In other words, we had to go to some remote area where no one was around. I may start mind controlling the whole block if we don't. Because Lorne's gift has to do with singing, he isn't affected by my gift. Ed thinks it's because if he was affected by my gift, his visions may be skewed based on my personal feelings rather than what actually is. That's just a theory, but true or not, Lorne was the only person not affected by my gift.

"Can't we just do it now to get it out of the way?"

"You need to get some sleep. It's almost midnight already, and we don't want to mess up your sleep schedule."

"You're such a Mom." I couldn't stop myself from saying. He smiled proudly.

"I try." He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "Now sleep. We'll talk more tomorrow."

The second my door shut I stood up and went over to my closet. I grabbed a pair of sleep shorts and a Batman sweatshirt and stripped quickly before throwing the other clothes on. The wood floor felt cold under my feet, so I threw on a pair of Batman slippers I had next to the door. God I was such a nerd.

I grabbed the pillow off of my bed and took the blood stained pillowcase off. It looked like someone got murdered on it, but at least the actual pillow was clean. I didn't even want to look at my face right now, it belonged in a horror movie. Holding the bloody pillowcase in my hand, I left my room. I hoped Alec ended his shower. I didn't want to walk to the downstairs bathroom like this. I also didn't want to talk to any of the others right now. I was still a bit angry with them.

I walked down the long hallway, almost slipping on a sock that was left on the hardwood floor. I mean the center of the hall had a deep blue carpet, but there was still room on the edges to slip. I'm such a klutz. Once I got to the linen closet, I jumped up and pulled on the string which would turn on the light. I just barely reached it. Then I walked further into the room (okay so it was more like a walk in closet with the sheets, washer, and dryer in it, but that's too long to say) and threw the pillowcase in the washer. Shelves were placed between the washer and the dryer on the wall.

I sighed to myself. Everyone always puts stuff out of my reach. I'm the shortest one here and they all seem to forget that. Jonah is only like...maybe four inches taller than me, but he somehow is able to reach everything. Everyone else is six feet tall or more. The clean pillow cases were placed on the top shelve. I jumped up and tried to reach the top one on the stack, I didn't want to knock the whole stack over by pulling out one from the bottom, Ed would kill me. I swear that man has some form of O.C.D. at times. I get it though, I'd be mad too if everyone messed up what I had neatly organized.

I jumped again. I missed and slammed my hand on the dryer. I was about to jump again, but then I saw a hand reach above me. I jumped away quickly and crouched defensively. That scared the shit out of me.

"You wanted this one right?" Alec asked me as he easily grabbed the pink silk pillowcase off of the top of the stack. He handed it to me. I guess he didn't notice my face until now because he looked horrified. "I...uh...your face...it's bleeding..."

"That happens sometimes." Alec tilted his head to the side like a curious puppy. I have to admit, that was a bit cute. "When I cry, my tears are blood, so I look like a bloody mess." He stayed quiet for a moment. "That was a joke, you can laugh if you want. Everyone else does."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. I'm just weird."

"It was because of me that you were crying."

"No."

"I didn't mean to cause trouble for you. I'll leave if you want."

"No." Alec gave me that damn look again. What was so confusing about the word no? "It's not you, there's just a lot going on."

"Is your hand okay?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Why are you asking so many questions?"

"Why are you answering my question with a question?"

"Why are you asking that?"

"Why won't you answer my question?"

"Why do you care?"

"Why wouldn't I care?"

"Why are you asking so many questions?"

"Why did you use the same question twice?" I glared at him as he smirked. I don't know why he insisted on playing this game. "You look kind of cute right now."

"Huh?"

"Shit, sorry..."

"It's fine." There was an awkward silence between us for a second. I was thankful that I couldn't blush. My complexion was at least normal for a vampire. I felt like I should say something else. "Thanks for the pillowcase."

"Yup." He looked up at the ceiling and blinked quickly three times. I wondered if it was out of embarrassment or something. "Your welcome."

I moved past him and back down the hall a little ways into the bathroom. I slid the door shut and locked it. I looked at myself in the mirror. I did not look cute. Not even close. Why would he even say that? Guys are so confusing. I scrubbed my face clean of blood for at least five minutes, trying to scrub away the weirdness that I felt.

What the hell was it? Alec was acting kind of weird. I wasn't used to guys acting like...whatever that was. I'm used to everyone here picking on me now and then, and the guys at my school calling me names. I know my "brothers" didn't actually mean it and just thought they were funny, so that was easy to forgive. The guys at my school were just plain awful about it. I got sort of numb to it; it still hurt a little, but I could handle them.

I shook the feeling out of my head, it was ridiculous anyway, whatever it was. Alec probably just felt awkward because he's in a new place and doesn't remember anything. I know I felt awkward my first couple nights here, and I remembered everything. I can't imagine how the poor guy must feel. Maybe I'll try to make it less awkward for him, it was nice for me to have Jonah to transition with, but he doesn't have anyone.

Lorne said I should make friends with him. I'm not so good at the whole friends thing. He seemed nice enough though, maybe Alec won't be so bad. I went back to my room, careful not to slip on the random sock again. I got in bed and pulled the covers up to my nose. I kept the lamp on, I hated sleeping in the dark.

I stared at where the plain white ceiling connected to the lilac purple walls for what seemed like hours just thinking. Mostly about this whole trying to make friends thing. That was the first night I fell asleep thinking about Alec. It certainly wouldn't be the last. To think that everything I thought about laying there was so simple compared to what was to come...I was still very naïve.