Rosaline

School finally passed. It seemed like it took for ever to end! I met up with Alex after I struggled to change into my tank top and shorts.

"So, do you want to ride with me so you could show me the way to your house?" I asked eagerly.

He hesitated, but finally said, "Umm… Sure. What ever you want."

We walked in silence to my car. I think I'm pretty fast at the whole reading-mind thing. I was able to tune the voices out completely and focus on my class works. I sat with Jessica at lunch as usual, but I couldn't look at her the way I used to. Who would expect us to be fraternal twins anyways? We looked nothing alike because of the fraternal part. I knew only Alex and Jack would know that I was a Pearl and not one of the Sapphires.

"So…" I said when we were out of the school parking lot. "Where do I go now?"

"Straight," he told me. Life isn't fair! he thought.

"Stop complaining!" I told him. "Life isn't fair for everybody! Do you think I would have been sent away if life was fair? No. If life is fair, I would be living with real family now. I would know who my sisters and brother are. My real family."

"If life is fair," he snapped, "I would be able to hear your voice!"

"Is that what you were so mad over?" I asked him. "Well stop complaining. You are not making eye contact with me. So therefore, you won't be able to read my mind now even if you could any other time."

"Now turn right," he insisted. I put on my blinker and looked back for no reason at all. Then, something caught my eyes. It looked like Jackson but he looked see-though!

"Umm… Alex?" I whispered.

"Yes?"

"Is that Jackson on the back seat?" I was freaking out now.

Before Alex could answer, Jackson's friendly, familiar voice flowed inside my ears. "Hey! How come you can see me?"

"Jackson, what are you doing here?" I asked, too loud.

"What's Emerald doing here?" Jack pointed at Alex with his chin.

"I was going to Alex's house," I told him.

"So get out of the car!" Alex yelled.

"Oh common!" Jack pleaded angrily. "I already gave to Rosaline. What else do you want?"

"Wait a second, here," I hopped in. "What?"

"Didn't you find you about that part in my mind?" Alex asked.

"Rose can read minds?" Jack interrupted.

"Yeah. Everybody's but yours," I told him. "By the way, why can't I read your mind? And why can I see you?"

"Well, I'm not in human form yet, so I basically don't have a mind for you to read. And I guess you're sidekick now." Jack was lost in thoughts.

"Well can you at least reform into a human?" I asked.

"Oh, sure. Of course." The second Jackson became a 'human,' his thought came into my head. He mentioned about being enemies with Alex because they were fighting over Rosaline and Rosemary. He also mentioned the Halloween school dance.

"Why did you mention the dance?" I asked curiously.

"You really can read minds!" Jack almost yelled out the words. "Now that you mentioned it out loud, I wanted to ask you one thing. Can you go with me to the dance?"

"Hey, I was going to ask her!" Alex interrupted.

"Well, too bad!"

"Hey guys," I said. The air was getting heated in the car, so I rolled down the window to allow some fresh air to come in. "I'm not going to the dance. Jessica asked me to her Halloween slash birthday party, and I'm going to go since it was my birthday, too. You two are welcome to come. And now, Jackson, you have to leave because I'm going to Alex's. He didn't invite you."

"But Rose…" Jack pleaded.

"I'm sorry. But Alex needs to give me my answers. I need to know what was wrong with me. So you'll have to go."

Jack tried to say something, but stopped it midway. He reformed into a ghost and slipped through the window after throwing another sad look at me. He looked really hurt.

The second Jackson was out of earshot, Alex said to me, "Nice job, Rosa! You really did it! I thought you would let him stay or something."

"No, that would be rude. I'm going to your house because you invited me, but you didn't invite him. I have no right to let him come with us to your house. Plus, your thoughts were yelling at me with your 'Please! Don't let Jackson Eyre come with us! Please don't!'" Even though I said what I was supposed to say, I felt kind of sorry for treating Jack the way I treated him. His pleading look kept on appearing in my mind.

"So…" Alex broke the silence. "Do you want to go to the dance with me?"

"I thought I told you I was going to Jess's party." Was he listening to what I was saying all along?

"You really are going? It thought that was an excuse!"

"Well, it's not. And I need your help on something." How am I supposed to put this in an unselfish way?

Alex was looking patiently.

"Can you help me…" Oh my. This sounds wrong. I tried again. "Can you help me so that Jessica and Jeffery and Shannon know that I'm their sister? I know this sound selfish. And you probably have much more things to do than hang out with me. So the choice is yours. If you can't, I can always ask Jack." I rushed my words.

"No!" he yelled. I jumped a little bit. "Don't ask Jackson!"

"Calm down. Where am I supposed to turn?"

"Oh. Turn left right there."

I turned. "And then?"

"Turn right now."

I did what he said, and soon, I was driving up the hill. "Where is your house anyway?" I asked.

"On the very tip of the hill. You are already driving on my property." Wow! His land was big. Huge!

As I got closer to the top, the house started to show. It seemed like it was made of glass! I can see every detail inside this house. Jennifer, Isabel, and Casey sat in one sofa, blathering about something. Michael making a face at the girls before turning into the kitchen. A man and a woman came down the second floor, holding hands. They opened the fridge and got out two glasses of red liquid. I assumed that they are Mr. and Mrs. Emerald. They were all incredibly beautiful, yet pale, just like Alex.

"Park right over there," Alex spoke. I did what he ordered.

"C'mon!" he called wile opening the car door. I didn't move. Alex stopped. "Come on," he said again.

"What if they don't like me?" I asked.

"Oh they like you. I told them about you and they all liked you really much!" he comforted me.

I stepped out of my car, feeling awkward. "Alex?" He turned to look at me. "You are the only one who has a gift, right?" He nodded, smiling. "And they all hunted yesterday, right?" Let's not forget that I'm still human. There was blood flowing in my body. He nodded again. "Okay. Let's go."

The door opened before we touched the door bell. Well, of course you'll see people coming when your whole house is made out of glass. Casey was the one to open the door. By now, I could tell the triplets apart. From Alex's thought I knew that Jennifer's eyes were more of a blue color than green. Isabel's hair has a shade of orange in it. And Casey's hair was pure black.

Is this Rosaline? Casey was looking straight into Alex's eyes. He nodded.

"Hi! Rose, right? I'm Casey. Nice to meet you!" She gave me her hand to shake. It felt like marble, so hard and cold. As we spoke, the rest of the Emeralds took their place behind Casey.

Self control, Casey. Don't attack, Mrs. Emerald thought.

You can do it, Casey, Jennifer and Isabel thought at the same time.

I released Casey's hand and moved into Alex's arm. Then, I felt my face blushed. "Sorry," I apologized.

"Oh. Mom. Dad. I forgot to tell you that Rose is kind of… gifted," Alex explained.

"Gifted?" Mrs. Emerald's musical voice spoke.

"After the accident yesterday, she can hear people's voices," Alex said sourly.

The rest of the Emeralds looked confused. I tried to explain this time. "I'm sorry for my rude behavior. It's just that I'm not used of being around immortals, no offence. The thoughts you have about Casey made me kind of… scared."

"I'm sorry about that," Mr. Emerald replied. "Welcome to our house, Rosaline. I'm Carlos. This is my wife Emily; my eldest son Michael; the triplets: Jennifer, Isabel, and Casey. And of course you know Alex."

"Dad, let's sit down," Jennifer suggested. Alex led me to the big, white, leather sofa. We sat down next to each other.

"So you know we are vampires," Emily spoke first.

I nodded.

"And you are not afraid?" Isabel was really surprised.

"Well, am I supposed to?" I asked.

"Not technically," Jennifer answered.

"Have you ever met any other immortals?" Carlos asked.

"Yes. Jackson Eyre," I told him.

"And…?" Casey questioned.

"He's a ghost. You and the Eyres are like best friends, right?" I thought Casey knew that.

"Dad, if you will excuse us, I want to take Rose up to my room. Rose wanted some answers." Alex looked at me.

"Why of course. Just be careful," Carlos answered.

We walked up the stairs to the third floor, where two white doors stood on the white wall. It seemed like the Emeralds loved white and black. So far since I stepped into their front doors, all I saw was white, black, and green. The entire house was white and everything in it was white, too. All the Emeralds were wearing black; Carlos was wearing a black suite; Emily with a black dress; Michael and Alex were wearing a black t-shirt and black shorts; the triplets wearing black tank tops and black mini skirts. Even I was wearing black by accident. I was wearing a black tank top and black jeans. How did I end up dressing like this? The little bit of green I saw were the Emeralds' brilliant green eyes.

Alex opened one of the doors for me. "Shall we?" His voice was, as usual, beautiful.

"Thank you," I said as I walked through the door. His room was, of course, white. There was a white bed in a corner of the huge room. On the other side was a white, granite desk with a giant shelf built into the wall behind it. The shelf was full of books of different sizes. The room was neat and tidy, unlike mine. "Wow, nice room," I complemented.

"Thanks," he replied. "Take a seat, please." Alex led me to his white loveseat. "So, what was it that you want to ask me?"

Alexander

"Tell me about you first," Rose told me. "How did you become a vampire?"

"First, my mom and dad became vampires. Well, Mortal Vampires to be exact. A person becomes a vampire after he or she was bitten by a vampire, mortal or not. Vampires are venomous, so the venom poisons the person and within days, the person's heart stops. For some people, though, they have a kind of immortal gene. The genes will fight the venom. The person either dies or becomes a Mortal Vampire. Carlos and Emily are, well, Mortal Vampires. And the weird thing about us is that we can have kids. So my mom is really my mom, and my dad is really my dad. It's scary to think about it sometimes. Normal vampires can't have kids," I explained.

"Now tell me about Jack," she said.

"Well, Jack is a ghost. And there's nothing much to say about him." My answer was plain and easy.

"Okay," she approved. "Now tell me about me. About Rosemary."

"I thought you already knew," I said.

"I wanted to know more."

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything." Anything. That's easy.

"You have the immortal gene. The gene that turned me into Mortal Vampire. The gene that turned Jackson into a Humanly Ghost. You have it." I'm glad I had something to say. And I'm suddenly happy that she had the immortal gene. The immortal gene is like your personal army, fighting for your body. But the thought about the gene fighting the venom made me shiver. Two days ago, I tried to talk Rose into coming to my house because I wanted to make her into a vampire. I wanted to taste her blood. Human blood was all I wanted. I didn't even know why! I was just searching for someone's blood to drink. But I'm glad Rose didn't come. The thought of her immortal gene fighting my venom was just wrong. She could have died before the venom even spread.

"You were thinking about making me a new-born, aren't you?" She broke my thought bubble.

"Well, last Sunday…"

"No problem. But I never thought you would think that. At least not around me." She looked down. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't. What was wrong with me again?

"So are you going to help me to get my real family to know who I am?" she asked after a long pause.

"Of course I will," I promised.

"Thanks," she said sweetly. Then, she looked at the clock. "I think I better go. Cathy is almost home."

"Um… sure. I'll stay up until I can find a way to help you," I told her.

"You don't have to do that."

"I can survive without sleeping. After all, normal vampires don't sleep, so we can stay up all night, too."

She smiled and said 'thanks' again. Then, we went out of my room.

I was thinking of a way to help her without freaking out her family after Rose left. Cathy would be more than happy to be an only child, so the Sapphires were good. They would go with whatever happened to Rosaline since they don't love her. The Pearls were the hard part.

I was still trying to think out a solution late at night, but I've go nothing. Maybe I would stay up all night, like I had told Rose.