Author's Note: It took a lot of research until I finally found out enough about this town to figure out what I wanted to do with it. Acctually, Ketchikan, Alaska is THE rainiest city in the US. It also is small, so it fit. I hope you like the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own any Twilight Saga characters.

NO SACRIFICE NO VICTORY.

Chapter One

Charlie

I laid in a lawn chair behind the house, staring at the muted sun directly above me behind the thin film of clouds. Noon. What a boring time of day. All the other names for the times of day are really cool and mysterious sounding. Twilight, Dawn, Midnight … even o'clock sounds interesting. But Noon just sounds so obvious and normal. Yeah, it's sunny, but people just take that for granted. It still doesn't have the same effect that a sunset does.

That's how I felt. I'm the only human in a house full of vampires. (Well, aside from my mother, the half-vampire, and my father, the werewolf, but that is beside the point.) My grandfather reads minds, my aunt sees the future, and my uncle can force me to be happy. All I have is a slight shimmer on my skin that doesn't even suggest something supernatural. Oh yeah, and my blood doesn't smell appetizing to vampires. It smelled expired.

"Ready for school tomorrow?" Alice said, jumping in the chair next to me. Alice, Jasper and my parents stayed down by Forks so I could complete grades K-9 on the La Push Reservation, while Carlisle, Esme, Bella, Edward, Emmett and Rosalie went to Canada to stay with the Denali coven. Now that I was entering high school, we decided to move to Ketchikan, Alaska, so that we could go to high school there.

"You know, it'll kinda be creepy going to school with my parents," I said with a moan.

"What? You didn't even consider the fact that you are going with your grandparents?" Alice asked, laughing.

"You know I don't really think of Bella and Edward as grandparents," I replied, sitting up. "They look no older than eighteen. They're more like you, an aunt or uncle."

"Well, you don't have to bother with us. You don't look like us, so people won't be afraid. And you can take the bus…" Alice babbled on, trying to cheer me up. I stopped listening after a while and laid back down. The best thing about being human was that I could sleep …

************

I took the car with Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie. Figures Alice was wrong about taking the bus; the buses didn't travel out in the secluded woodsy area where the house was.

I stared out the window the whole ride. Everyone else was talking, but their perfect voices had a way of making me feel very self-conscious. Most of the ride was along a small highway with a luscious forest on one side (probably formed from the constant rainfall), and on the other side a wide expanse of water. I could just make out another island on the other side of the canal.

I was trying to see if I could see any signs of life on the other side when a majestic bird swooped in from nowhere, attacking the water with its talons, and bringing back a large salmon. I watched as the eagle flew to the top of an evergreen tree to enjoy its prize.

"Oh, gasp," mocked Emmett from the front seat. Alice, who was sitting right behind him, gave him a shove that was probably much more forceful than it looked.

We veered off the main road into a more suburban area. It wasn't long until we pulled up to the school. I held my breath so that Emmett couldn't tease me for gasping in awe; the building was so beautiful. It was in a "V" shape, with a square sticking out the front corner that was made almost all window. Green, richly grown gardens were surrounding the school. I had a feeling of déjà vu as I thought of the house in Forks.

Here goes nothing, I thought, newly invigorated by the beauty of the building as I opened the door and stepped outside.