Chapter 3

As I exited the gym, Emmett was there waiting for me, as promised.

"Hey. Edward warned me about the tight fit situation. Do you want me to, like, climb in the trunk?"

"No, that's where Alice goes." He joked. "No, don't worry about it. You three girls will fit in the back with Edward. Jasper and I will sit in the front. It'll be tight, but without seatbelts, it should work okay."

"Sounds good." I followed him to the car, where everyone was waiting for us.

"What's the plan?" Alice asked, skipping over to meet us.

"You're gonna squeeze in the back with the girlies, Edward." He gave him a cheeky smile; Edward just rolled his eyes. I climbed into the car and squished over as far as I could. Rosalie and Alice squashed up beside me, leaving as much room as possible for Edward. Once he was in, they spread out slightly so I could breathe. Emmett started the engine, with Jasper in the passenger seat. He drove at a regular speed through the parking lot, but as we made it to the freeway, he floored it—faster than I was even aware a car could go. Faster, even, than when Dimitri drove the night Lissa was kidnapped. He made it back to their home almost as quickly as he did when he carried me after lunch.

As he drove around to the garage, all eyes turned to my car.

"Shit, guys, if you want one so much, why not just buy one. I mean, from what Emmett told me, you have way more money than my father." Emmett parked the car and everyone climbed out, crowding my baby.

"Well, we could," Rosalie began, "if there was anywhere around here that sold them. You have to buy them from Italy and have them shipped. They've literally just been released. We may as well just wait for them to be sold in America."

"But Emmett said he was going to buy one? If they've only just been released—holy shit my father's insane!" I interrupted myself.

"Huh?" they all looked at me in confusion.

"I've only known my father for six months…and he had a Ferrari shipped from Italy for me!" they still continued to stare at me blankly. "You don't get it; you're rich."

"And you aren't?" Emmett laughed.

"No, I'm not. My father and some of my friends are. There is a difference. I have nothing, and neither does my mother."

"But your father has money?" I nodded. "And you have access to his bank account?" I nodded again. "So you're just as rich as we are." He explained as though I was stupid.

"Well, if Lissa decides to send me a card, I'll be richer."

"Well, yeah. How did you know that she was planning to?" Alice asked. Then I started wondering how she knew, as well.

"I'll explain in a moment. How did you know?"

"I'll explain in a moment." She shot me a sly smile. I could tell we were gonna be great friends. We walked into the house and I noticed there was two extremely beautiful people sitting on the couch.

There was a man and a woman. The man was tall and had blond hair, and, of course, gold eyes and pale skin. And the woman was tall, too—not majorly, but about five-nine, five-ten-ish. She had long-ish caramel colored hair, and was slightly softer and curvier than the other two girls. Rosalie had killer curves—more so than mine, even—but this woman looked as though she had given birth only a week or two ago.

"Rose," Alice called to me. "This is Carlisle and Esme. Carlisle, Esme, this is Rose. She's a dhampir…?" she looked to me for confirmation as to whether she was right or wrong.

"That's right." I noticed Carlisle and Esme giving me curious looks. "And that's what I'm here to explain I'm here to explain."

I gave them more or less the same explanation id given Emmett earlier, with him adding in bits I'd forgotten about. I also explained in slightly more detail than I had with Emmett.

"So. What about you?"

"What do you want to know about?"

"Everything. I've just gone into great detail about my life, but before you begin, do you have any food? I haven't eaten since…five a.m. yesterday." I kind of expected them to have forgotten about the whole nocturnal thing, but they didn't.

"No, I'm sorry. We don't eat. If you're hungry, you're going to have to go buy something."

"Sure. Can someone show me the way to the 7/11 or something?" I began to stand up, patting my pockets, trying to find my keys. "Do you remember what I did with my keys?" I turned to Emmett. He pulled them out of his pocket and threw them to me. "Wh—"

"You left them on the coffee table earlier. I didn't think you'd want them here alone." He mocked crying.

"Asshole. Just because you're in love with my car. So, is anybody coming with me?" they didn't respond. "I'll let you drive…" I taunted, holding the keys above my head, and suddenly I was surrounded by five teenage vampires grabbing for the keys. I threw them in the air and ducked out to see what would happen. They all scrambled, hitting and kicking, trying to get the keys. And then Alice appeared on Emmett's shoulders and grabbed them mid-air.

"I win!" she cheered herself. I laughed my ass off, while Carlisle and Esme just rolled their eyes. She grabbed my hand and began pulling me away. I heard complaints behind me.

"Jeesh, it's just a car." I muttered to myself.

"It's not a car; it's the car."

"Okay, okay, don't bite my head off."

When we got in the car, Alice was practically bouncing in her seat. She started the car and shot out of the garage. She took the long, winding driveway at around eighty, and when we made it to the freeway, she floored it. We were going so fast, I don't think the needle was even attached to the dial, anymore. But, to be honest, it was pretty fun. We arrived at the store in no time.

"Woah. That was probably the fastest I ever saw a car go."

"It could go faster, if you like?" she had a hopeful look in her eyes.

"How? Don't you have a Porsche, anyway? Why are you so obsessed with my car."

"Yeah, but your car's way better. And Rose could boost the engine, if you like. It would go so much faster. Like…three hundred."

"What use do I have of going three hundred miles per hour? I'll probably only ever push it to eighty. Ninety max. I think two hundred's fast enough." I looked at the time on my phone, only to find it was nearly six p.m. and I had a message from my dad. I opened it.

Where are you?
—Abe

I sighed and texted back,

Met some kids at school. Will be back in ten.
—Rose

"Hey, Alice, is it okay if my dad comes back with us? He's a vamp, so doesn't really need feeding."

"Yeah, that's fine. Carlisle would think it's great."

"Good. Well, I know where the store is now for future reference, but there's food at home. He would never dare to live in the same house as me and not own food. I'll drive this time."

"Okay. But don't go too slow. It's boring that way."

"You're forgetting: I can die!"

"But you said you've been brought back to life, though."

"Yeah. With spirit. I see no spirit users here. Plus, I'd be bonded with two people then, and that can't be good for me."

"Humph." She climbed out of the driver's seat and swapped with me, pouting. But, of course, when I started the engine, a massive grin spread across her face. I rolled my eyes.

As we hit the freeway, I began to speed up. I got faster and faster, trying to satiate Alice. In the end, I floored it. I figured my reflexes were fast enough that I could stop the car before anything bad happened. And the car's reflexes were quick enough to keep up with mine.

When we got back to the house, I found Abe in the hallway, waiting for me. He was muttering to himself in Turkish.

"Hey, Abe. This is Alice. She's one of those other vampires we were told about. You'd best have bought food. I'm hungry."

"When aren't you hungry?" he asked from behind me.

"When I'm surrounded by Strigoi, when there are Strigoi within a mile of me, and when I found out Dimitri could've been dead." I paused for a moment. "Ooh, and when I was told Eddie was taken." I rummaged through the fridge and the cupboards, finding the ingredients for a chicken sandwich. I cut it down the middle and took a bite. "Mmm, sammich." They looked at me like I was crazy. "What? It's a good sammich. Ooh, shit. Can you cook?"

"Vaguely." I looked in the cupboards and found nothing but pot noodles that didn't involve too much cooking.

"Take-out or pot noodles?" I asked him.

"Either. Take your pick." He laughed at me.

"Hey, guess what."

"What?"

"Alice's brother's gonna build me a gym. If I teach them how to fight." He raised an eyebrow. "No, seriously, they have more money than you."

"Shit."

"That's what I said." He turned to Alice with a questioning look.

"Is this true? The only people I know with more money than me are royal."

"Well, Carlisle has been probably the best doctor alive—ish—for over two hundred years."

"Yeah, Emmett said that. It doesn't quite make sense." I said.

"We'll explain it all back at the house. You coming?" she asked Abe.

"Yeah. May as well." He picked up a set of keys and walked to the front door, I followed him with Alice trailing behind me, speaking at about a hundred miles an hour.

"Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose! Can I drive, can I drive, can I drive? Please, please, please, please, please?"

I turned quickly, feeling about ready to punch her. "If you shut the fuck up, I might think about it." I snapped. She stared at me with an innocent look in her eyes.

"Please?" she asked quietly.

"Fine." I dug out the car keys and yelled out to Abe. "Dad! Alice is driving." We stepped out the house to see Abe glaring at me from inside his own car. Alice flashed round to the driver's side of my car and I got in shot gun. I heard someone rapping on the window and turned to see Abe standing there. I rolled down the window. "You snooze, you lose, old man." He glared for a second longer before climbing in the back.

"This is ridiculous," he grumbled to himself, "two girls half my age forcing me into the back seat of a car."

"Actually, Dad, Alice is probably twice your age, so, only one girl half your age forced you…and there wasn't any forcing involved, although either one of us could." I stated. "And you better hold on to your seat; Alice likes to drive fast."

"What?" he stared at me in confusion for only a second before the car shot off the driveway. "Oh." He said while fumbling for his seatbelt.

"Chill out, I'm not gonna crash." Alice reassured him.

"Easy for you to say." She laughed.

"I've never had a crash. I've never even gotten a ticket. Relax."

"Relax? Relax? You're going over a hundred miles an hour here! How am I meant to relax?" she pulled up in the garage.

"We're here." She said, turning to smile at him angelically. He spluttered a little bit before he managed to speak.

"What—how—why—you didn't crash."

"No, I didn't. I told you I wouldn't." She smiled at him and he glared.

"Don't mind him. He's just used to getting his way. Let's go inside." I said.

Once inside, we once again sat down on the ridiculously comfy couches. Abe was quite obviously uncomfortable sitting in a room with vampires, so he sat next to me, so stiff it looked as though he had a broomstick up his ass.

"Now," I began, "are you going to explain about you?" they looked between each other, obviously trying to decide who would speak, and eventually, Carlisle spoke up.

"Where to start…" he murmured to himself. "Well, we are made, not born like you. We all start out human. One bite from one of us is enough to turn a human—maybe not someone like you, though. We're immortal. We have perfect eyesight, hearing, and perfect memories; never forget a thing. We do drink blood, but we don't need it every day, but we," he gestured to his family, "feed from animals. We don't want to kill, but once we taste the blood, we can't stop, so I figured that animals were a good compromise. Not that I like killing animals, but I don't feel guilty in the way that I do for feeding from humans.

"Some of us have special powers. Alice, Edward, and Jasper all have them. Alice can see the future, Edward can read minds, and Jasper can feel and manipulate the emotions of people around himself. They have their limitations, of course. Alice cannot see the future of anything she has not experienced, for example, she can see vampires most clearly because she is one, she can see humans alright because she was one, but she cannot see the werewolves because she has never been one."

"Werewolves?" I all but yelled at him.

"I'll get to them in a moment, now where was I… oh, yes. And then there's the Volturi. They're like our royalty; they make the rules. They live in Italy. Only three make up the actual Volturi, but there are nine members to their guard. I suppose their guard is like you Guardians, Rose; they protect the Volturi against any threat anyone else my pose. Every member has a talent, for example Jane and Alec. They're twins who were turned around a thousand years ago. Their talents are similar, and yet very, very different. They both have the power to incapacitate almost anyone at will. Jane causes such unbearable pain you can't stand, yet Alec makes you feel nothing at all; he shuts off all your senses.

"The three main members to the Volturi: Aro, Marcus, and Caius. Aro is the overall leader of them, and a close friend of mine. I lived with them for a few decades back in the fifteenth century. Now, the werewolves…" he trailed off for a moment, trying to think of what to say. "Well, they're not really werewolves. They're shape-shifters, technically, but we refer to them as werewolves, as do they, themselves. All the boys on the La Push reservation have the ability to shape-shift, although the gene isn't triggered until their teen years. That's all we really know; they're sworn to kill any vampire that comes across their territory. We have a treaty with them which means that if any of us bites a human, they can kill us. We also can't go onto their land, or they'll kill us."

"That actually makes a lot of sense." I thought things over for a moment, but then something struck me. "Wait—if you're immortal then you must have finished high school ages ago." They nodded. "So why are you still there?" I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"We have to blend in with the other people. We're technically only teenagers, so if we were just running round town and not going to school, people would become suspicious." Alice pointed out. "Plus, we never forget anything, so we get perfect marks on everything—and it's why Carlisle is the bestest doctor in the world. We're always the top students in the entire school. Edward and I are juniors at the moment, but Jazz, Rose, and Emmett are seniors."

"Wait, that's not fair. I'm eighteen, and they put me in junior classes?"

"No, they put you in junior biology. Most of your other subjects are senior classes."

"But I like biology. I'm good at biology." I pouted. Edward laughed at me.

"Because physics is the only senior science. You've never taken physics before—or, well, according to your record, at least." I glared at him and he laughed again. "I wouldn't worry about it, Rose. Its only for four months. Just stick it out."

Right then, my phone began to ring. The tone was "Ours" by Taylor Swift. Lissa had already pre-set the ring tones. Thank god I wouldn't be getting any calls during school; that could be pretty embarrassing.

I looked at the caller ID and saw it was Dimitri. I gave a little squeal before answering.

"Hey, Comrade!"

A.N. Very sorry, but I won't update for a while; I closed my poll today and Hopefully Happy Ending won. I will update occasionally, but I will be writing that one more now. I don't want to stop writing this, but I don't have much choice; I can't keep track of what I'm writing in my stories because there's just too many, but I already have tonnes more ideas for stories, so once I get near to the end of that one, there'll be more up…and I will keep updating, but not as much as I was previously…not that that was very often, anyway. Very sorry.