No excuses just I'm so sorry for it being so so long since I updated! Ugh, I'm terrible, don't hate me! Thank you to everyone who put this in their favorites and everything, and well…let's just get to the story!

**I don't own anything except my OC and whatever convoluted thing that's not recognizable from the actual plot line. Also whatever else I decide to add – be it by someone else – all rights to them.

I woke up gasping for breath and eyes wide; I quickly looked around the room to see Benny tapping continuously with a nervous expression. I groaned and laid my head back down while rolling towards the side of the bed, I guess I hadn't calculated how close I was to the edge of the bed already…and ended up falling off of it.

"Clare, Clare are you okay?" I feel Benny grab my upper arms and pull me up to stand.

"Yeah, just a little frazzled and really, really tired I didn't get home until late last night and finding out that I'm related to an evil vampire hell bent on some revenge scheme, prophecy thing that has girlfriend issues isn't exactly my idea of a fun night out." I push away from him and towards my closet.

"I waited up for hours until I couldn't anymore, I really wanted to be here for you in case you wanted to talk about it…" Benny voiced, walking over to my desk.

"That's sweet Benny, really we just talked for a little and he showed me some family heirlooms and pictures before I bolted out of there...but I'm not really in the talking mood. Maybe later once I've actually processed everything and – you know what, right now I don't even want to think about it. Please, please, please keep me from thinking about it." I laid my head down on the cool closet door.

It felt like I was there for hours, waiting in utter silence for Benny to say something until I felt him come up behind me and say with that adorable smile I know is on his face, "Ya know…bed head really suits you."

And with that I ran into the bathroom because come on…it's morning and even though Benny, Ethan, and I have had sleep overs…I've always looked better than I do right now.

Walking out of school Benny and I had decided to thumb wrestle because we heard Janet Havers and Don McCallister fighting about who was better, boys or girls. And then Benny and I got into this big debate and somewhere along the way…thumb wrestling became part of the conversation.

"Guys! Wazzzuuuup?" I heard someone shouted from across the yard (well I knew it was Rory…who else says that besides these three idiots?) and as Benny turned to look at him, I slammed my thumb down over his and couldn't to ten as he tried to pull away.

"I win!" I grinned in victory, throwing my hands in the air, and doing a little dance as Benny pouted. "I will claim my prize as soon as you know what you want to give me." I looked over at Rory to see him wearing some ridiculous looking shades. "Hey Rory, been shopping I see."

Ethan ignored us (no shocker there…we did get pretty annoying), "Rory, you're…We thought you were dead."

"All I know is, I woke up this morning after the party feeling awesome. No asthma, I don't need my glasses, and I barely have to sleep anymore. The only problem's the sun: kind of annoying. Oh and Clare, by the way, Jesse's been looking for you. Something about books?"

"You're a fledgling too?" Benny exclaims, then as if realizing the end of Rory's sentence, turns to me and says, "Wait, since when are you and your undead super great grandpa best buds?"

"It's nothing. Just some books on his families-our families history."

"Pfft! Heck no! I'm rocking the full on vampire action, dude. The big V!" Rory and I looked at each other as we spoke at the same time; I rolled my eyes as he held up his index fingers in a 'V' shape. Looking back to Benny and Ethan he said, "Can I get a what-what?" while holding up his hand for a high-five.

"What? You drank human blood?" Ethan (of course) was judging Rory.

"I'm pretty sure they would have killed him if he didn't, Ethan you need to chill. Rory's life…undead life is important too." I said as I leaned on Benny's shoulder. Man am I tired, I can't even keep my eyes open.

"Yea! Exactly, Clare's right! Plus…all the other kids were doing it!" Rory exclaimed.

I could feel Benny shaking his head and as he put his arm around me so I could get in a better position he said, "Do you have any idea what you've just done to yourself?!"

"I'm immortal and all-powerful, dude. Ka-chow!" Rory accidentally kicked my shin and I yelled out tripping over. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself for the fall that never came. I opened my eyes to find Benny over me looking down towards my legs.

"You okay? How bad did he kick you?" then to Rory, "All-powerful immortal, ill stake your ass if you do anything like that again." He pulled me back up and bent down to see a bruise already forming.

"I'm okay, it's just going to be a little sore." I said as a group of vampires led by Gord all showed up wearing ridiculously expensive looking shades.

Rory looked back and shrugged at us, "Sorry, I gotta go to church."

"Church? Vampires don't do church." Ethan scoffed and looked at me shaking his head.

Rory shrugged again, "Jesse says we have to," Rory glanced back for a second then leaned closer to us, "He's so bossy. He's all, blah-blah, the prophecy, and blah-blah, you must find the Cuban animals, or –"

"Cuban animal?" the three of us said together, then just Benny and I said, "What are you talking about?"

"I don't know. That's what it sounded like. Anyway, we'll hang out later. Or, 'fang-out'!" he brought out his vampire fangs and grinned, "Zing!" he yelled before turning to rush over to the huddle of vampire seniors.

"Come on…grab your backpacks, we're going to church." Ethan tapped Benny's stomach lightly and started walking forward.

Benny looked down at me then back to Ethan before saying, "What?"

"Actually, if you guys don't mind…I'm going to sit this one out. I didn't get much sleep and I don't think I'll be much help. Text me if you need anything." I turned to Benny and kissed his cheek, walked over to Ethan and repeated the action and started walking towards my house.

I had gotten about an hours worth of sleep when I woke up to my kitty crawling over my face and sitting down, "Nala, damn it, not again." I pushed her off and onto my pillow instead, looks like I'm not getting anymore sleep for now. I decided to take a jog around the neighborhood to get my mind off of everything that's happened recently.

After I put on my spandex and sports bra, I went downstairs and put on my Nike running shoes. "Where are you off to little bug?"

"Hey dad! Just going for a jog to get my mind off some things and to get my blood pumping. How's Clarissa doing?" Clarissa's my mom, well mother. Not much of a mom when you abandon your family to have another one with your mistress. I mean I don't care if she prefers women to men but it would be nice if she'd send an email or call or send a postcard even! All the knowledge i have of her is that she now lives somewhere in Florida with a woman named Shirley and a baby on the way.

"Why ask if you don't want to know little bug?" My dad raised a brow at me and gave a little smirk. His name is Alex, he's 6'4 with salt and pepper hair and he's a professor.

"Touché," I walk out the door, "I have my phone with me!"

I had been running for a half hour when I saw Ethan, Sarah, and Benny rush around the corner in front of me. I smiled and sped up taking my earphones out and laughed when I saw Sarah raise her hands away when Ethan tried to grab her and say, "Nice try, Casanova."

"Hey guys!" I gasped out of breath coming up next to Benny, thankful they had stopped walking, "Oh thank werewolf Jesus you have water with you. I'm so parched right now!" I grabbed at the pitcher in Benny's hands and started chugging it down. "Wait…why do you have this with you? Oh yeah, you went to the church – never mind me, thanks for letting me drink holy water...now vampires won't wanna take a bite outta me haha."

Benny smiled at me and explained, "Ethan was just trying to prove he has visions when he touches Sarah." I laugh while he looks at Sarah and says, "Can't blame a player for trying." We started walking again; he looked at the ground then and did that cute little frown thing where his eyebrows crinkle together. He looks at me from the corner of his eyes and gives a mischievous grin and reaches for me, "But…maybe I'd get visions, too, if I –"

I'm laughing at Benny when Ethan slaps his hand away from me and yells at Benny that he doesn't get visions. I hear Benny apologize but the smile on his face tells me he's anything but sorry. I quickly grab his hand, interlocking them before I lose my courage, and start swinging our hands back and forth.

"So Jesse never told you what the prophecy is? Or what two-nineteen means?" Ethan looks to Sarah who shakes her head.

"I'm just a fledgling, remember? He'd only tell a real vampire."

"The number two-nineteen is for the souls." Everyone turns to look at me at the same time. "Oh come on. Don't look at me like that. We were all at Jesse's undead dinner party. Did none of you pay attention when he was talking? He said specifically, 'two hundred and nineteen, soul for soul', so my guess is something happened in the past and he wants to kill people for their souls? Or use them for some evil plot." It's quiet for a minute while they all stare at me until I see Benny smile.

"So hot." I blush when he winks at me and look down. "But wait, we still don't know what his evil plan is and none of the full vampires are dumb enough to just tell us."

"Well…one of them is." Ethan smirks at Benny who grins and pulls out his phone to starts dialing Rory.

After walking back towards our houses I took a shower and put on my Star Wars Vader shirt Benny got for me and a pair of Harley Quinn sweat pants and was drying my hair with a towel when I got a notification on my screen from…Ethan? I clicked accept and his face popped up onto my screen.

"Hey," he chuckled nervously, "I'm sorry I'm not doing this in person, it's just that I didn't want to be in hitting distance."

"What is it Ethan?"

"I'm so sorry, I've been a terrible friend and shouldn't have treated you the way I have been. I'm the scum of the earth, no lower than scum. I'm the scum of scum."

"Ethan, it's okay, you're not scum, I just…why have you been so weird lately?"

"Remember that dinner a while ago we had to go to? The one with our parents, this was a little before summer was over, and…just long story short, the way everyone was comparing us to each other it just really got to me and I just thought maybe…if those snobby people think your better than me…maybe you do to. And then I just kept asking myself these questions like, 'why is she friends with us', 'does she think she's better', 'do we mean nothing to her', and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. And then there's this whole babysitter, vampire, Benny thing…and I just didn't want something bad to happen with you thinking I hated you. You're one of my best friends Clary…we've been friends since we were born and I hope I haven't messed things up between us too bad…did I Clary? Mess things up too bad?"

I sat there looking at Ethan for a minute. We didn't say anything, just looked at one another in silence. "Wait what Benny thing-" I started until I got a tap on my window, I jumped looking to see not Benny like I thought, but in fact Jesse.

Looking back at Ethan I said, "I need to go…look this should have been done face to face and not in front of a screen. But, no Ethan, you haven't screwed things up too badly, I'm still pissed at you for acting the way you did instead of just coming to talk to me about how you felt! Honesty is always the best. I don't want you keeping things from me, okay? You or Benny! You're both my best friends and I hope something like this doesn't happen again." I gave a small smile when he let out a huge breath of relief, "And don't think you're off the hook just yet with anything...and you're going to get Benny to tell me what you two have been hiding from me for weeks now." His eyes widened, scratching the back of his head he waved goodbye and I looked over at the closed window.

Gathering up the courage to walk over to there I grabbed my bat and looked Jesse in the eyes, "Go away. I want nothing to do with you."

"You already have something to do with me. We're family." He smirked and tapped on the glass again, "now open up and let me in, I've got some of those books I was telling you about."

I weighed the options: A I could let my evil undead vampire great grandpa in and trust he won't turn me into a fledgling…or B I could let him toss in the books and tell him to get lost before Benny or my Dad showed up to find him here. Safe to say I chose the latter.

"Just the books. I really don't want you around here Jesse. Or should I say Gramps?" opening the window he lifted up a bag and shoved them towards me. I almost dropped the bag it was so heavy. "Holy cannoli, what, did you decide to put a whole library in here?"

"There are only a couple books so stop your whining. Now listen to me very carefully, I don't want you out the next couple of nights…I mean it wouldn't matter if you were a vampire…but I'm sensing that isn't what you want."

"You sensed right Gramps." I started taking the books out, there were only like five books, but they were huge. Except the last one, which was incredibly small but still quite the read.

"Look, just don't be caught walking alone at night…ever. Whitechapel isn't as safe as you think it is."

That sent shivers down my spine, I look back to find my window closed and Jesse gone, it's like he was never even here…except for the fact that the books he brought me were still here. Great, more homework. I picked up one of the heavier ones and decided to give it a go. Last night Jesse said he had met a girl and they had fallen in love when he was human. I couldn't even imagine it…Jesse as a human? What a sight that would have been…

+++ (A half hour later)

I slammed the book shut, "Ugh, this isn't helpful at all! Damn it. Well it is and I just don't want to read how I'm related to a homicidal vampire!" The book I had picked up was one of our family tree, apparently Jesse had kept tabs on his child and grandchildren up until a couple decades ago when he lost track of them when they left Whitechapel. And then a couple years ago when my great grandparents decided to move here Jesse hadn't known we were family. I shoved the book off my lap and gently placed it on the bed. Rubbing my hands over my eyes I picked up the smallest one that said, A History of Whitechapel ~1984~ on it, why is he giving me a book on the history of the town? To my surprise I found that Jesse had actually marked one of the pages with a sticky note that said start here, sighing I opened it up and began to read.

"The town of Whitechapel was actually once known as Black's Church, founded in 1809 by Reverend Horace Black. Black's disciples preyed upon the nearby townspeople until the night of a lunar eclipse, when an angry mob trapped them all in their place of worship and burned it to the ground. Two hundred and nineteen people died, and their remains buried in an unmarked grave. The next year, the town was reborn as Whitechapel."

Holy crap.

I skimmed the rest of it until I came to a page with an illustration of Reverend Black…oh my god.

I closed the book, ran downstairs, and over to Ethan's house. "Oh! Clare! You startled me!" Yeah, I sort of just barged in on Ethan's mom who in turn had dropped a couple cookies.

"Ah, sorry Mama Morgan, didn't mean to do that!" I picked them up and looked at her, "Hey, can I have these?"

"You don't want the clean ones? Those were on the floor?"

"Eh, five second rule?" she smiled at me as I blew on them. "Are Ethan and Benny upstairs?" I asked already on my way up. All I hear was a yes and I ran into Ethan's room. I mean I had assumed Benny would be with him…not Sarah. "Where's Benny?"

"His house, Sarah was just helping me figure out –" I cut him off.

"No time." I tossed him the book, "Just read the part with the sticky note and you'll understand! I'm going to go fill Benny in!" I run out of his room still holding the cookies. I make it down the stairs and look into the living room, "Bye Mama Morgan!"

"Leaving so soon? I could get you some milk for those cookies?" She starts to get up.

I stop her and start turning the doorknob, "Nah, it's cool! I just came to give Ethan a book! I'm off to find Benny!" I see her smiling and shaking her head as I run out and towards Benny's house.

Again since I've known Ethan and Benny since we were born I went into the house without an invite and saw Benny's Grandma in the kitchen taking out a cake from the oven, what is it with everyone and baking today?

"Oh! Clare sweetheart, so nice to see you, be a dear and lay the cover on the table so the pan doesn't burn a big circle through the wood."

"Course, Grams, hey is Benny here?" I picked up the caver and gently put it on the table so she could set down the cake.

She gave me a knowing look and said, "He came home a little while ago. He sounded like he was talking on the phone but I could be wrong, heavens knows my hearing could be going and I'm not getting any younger.

I giggled, "What are you talking about? You don't look a day over twenty-three." She laughed and swatted me on the butt as I walked past her to the stairs. Taking them two at a time I reached the top out of breath and had to pause for a minute. I was leaning my hands on my knees and I looked over at the wall leading to Benny's room, there were a couple pictures of him and his grandma, two of his mom and dad, and one of him with Ethan and me.

I smiled and started walking towards his room and as i put my hand on the doorknob I heard a laugh come from inside which made me pause.

That wasn't his laugh.

That was a girls laugh.

There was a girl in Benny's room.

A girl that wasn't me.

A girl, that isn't me, laughing in Benny's room.

And the door was closed.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

I tried backing away from the door but i guess my legs decided to have a panic attack and decided to spaz out. Needless to say, I ended up face first on the floor in front of his room making the loudest and most embarrassing noise in the world.

"What the heck was that?" I heard someone say through the door.

No! Oh my god, please do not come out-

"Clare?"

Dang it.

"Clare!" I felt hands grab me from behind and pull me to a standing position, "Hey, Clare-bear? You okay? What were you doing in front of my door? On the floor?" I stayed quiet looking at the floor, I couldn't look up to see his face, I couldn't look at whoever was in his room. "Hey," he tried to gently shift my head up to look at his eyes, "Clare? What happened?"

"Okay, well-" the sound of her voice made my gaze snap to hers. No. No. No. It was Della Mathews. The girl who had been making my life hell since the second grade. "-this has been fun but I need to get going. See you later." She grabbed her bag and headed down the stairs.

I couldn't even imagine what I looked like, breathing hard and eyes wide, staring after her like she just morphed into the devil in front of me.

"Clare-" my head snapped towards Benny, he must have seen something change in my eyes because he started rambling, "no, no, it's not what you think - I can explain, she said, she was just waiting, okay well maybe I should-"

"Benny, you don't have to explain to me. So you and Della are together," I gulped, "I'm happy for you, really, I mean it's time you got a girlfriend!" I gave a weak smile, "I mean, sure it may be the girl who has made my life unbearable since second grade but I'm sure we'll have to get along now that you're dating. I hope you two are really happy together." I started to turn around when he tried to say something again, "Oh and by the way we found out some of Jesses history and why the number two-nineteen is really important." I started to leave when Benny grabbed my arm, "Come on Benny, let go."

"No, Della and I-"

"Benny there are some things I'm okay with, like you and Della being a couple," not, "and some things I'm not okay with, like hearing about it. I'll be as supportive as I can...but you just need to give me time."

"No. You're going to listen to me." He grabbed my upper arms and dragged me to sit on his bed, "Della and I-"

"Benny-"

"Are not together."

...

...

...

"What."

"Della and I are not together. Look, Clare, a couple days ago she came up to me during class and asked if I could tutor her. I said no, because I know how mean she is to you, then I saw her 'accidentally' bump into you on the way out of class and all your papers flying everywhere and I just couldn't stand it anymore. So I went to talk to her and I said that I would tutor her on the condition that she leave you alone." I just looked at him, Benny wouldn't lie. "Clare, say something?"

Instead, I hugged him.

I had stayed over at Benny's and had to rush over to my house the next morning to change. We had just spent the rest of our time playing video games, watching movies, and talking. Ethan had called to talk, which ended up being him explaining what had happened at the cemetery with the box the vampires had dug up. It felt really nice to be able to do normal things again, we hadn't done anything like that in a long time...especially since this whole vampire fiasco had started. I grabbed my bag and headed downstairs to where Benny was waiting for me.

"No Ethan?" I asked munching on a granola bar as we headed to the school.

"Nah, went to school early, he wanted to get a head start on some project or something, he's such a dork," he looked at me smiling,"you know, we're matching today."

Shocked I looked down at my outfit then over at his, "Hey, you copying my style Weir?" I laughed at his appalled expression.

"If anyone is copying anyone's style you would be copying me." He flicked a piece of blonde hair that had fallen out of place.

We talked about some random things, one of them being an expo that was coming up that Benny really wanted to take me to since I've never been to one. We had begun arguing about the pros and cons of going.

"Come on, please? It'll be really fun! I promise I'll make it one of the best experiences ever? You know you want to."

"Even if I said yes, we still wouldn't have any cosplays done. I'd have to come up with something and it's only a month away."

"Please Clare? I'll help! We could go as Han Solo and Princess Leia! Come on! That would be awesome! We already have most of it anyways!"

"Benny, that's a couple cosplay, we're not a couple."

"So what? Come on." He started pouting and giving me those stupid puppy dog eyes that he knew I couldn't say no to.

"Fine! On the condition that Ethan is Luke."

"Deal!" he started doing a little happy dance that had me dying of laughter on the floor. And that's how Ethan found us, me laughing on the floor and Benny still doing his little dace.

"Hey guys? Look, it's from Rory." He brought out his mini laptop sitting down next to me on my left while Benny moved to sit on my right while Ethan plugged in his earphones and put in the USB, "I found it in my mailbox this morning." He held out one of the earplugs to me and Benny.

Benny and I looked at each other and went for it at the same time and ended up struggling for it for a bit. I won.

Ethan rolled his eyes and started the video, Benny had moved me so that I was almost sitting on him and had shoved his face up right next to mine to hear what Rory was saying in his video.

"Hey, guys. Can you believe this?" Rory whispered into the camera, "All these books and not a single decent comic. No X-Men. Not even The Hulk." Ethan started mumbling at Rory to focus through the laptop, "Okay, I think I found what you're looking for. Check it out: 'An angels nest shall seed the Earth, Soul for soul the black army's rebirth, 'Neath a swallowed moon the dead take route, The barren orchard bears the devil's fruit.' Whoa. Best. Metal. Lyrics. Ever." After that Rory started to sing the poem again with head banging and a raised fist in the air.

"Ugh! I hate poetry! It never makes any sense! What angels nest?" Benny spoke really loudly.

As Ethan shushed him I answered in a quiet voice, "Cubile animus. Nest of souls. They found it by that angel statue Ethan mentioned last night, remember?"

"Oh. 'Seed the earth?'" Benny and Ethan looked around to make sure no one heard him.

Ethan furrowed his brow and said, "The box was buried in the ground, like a seed, I guess."

"Okay. 'The black army?'" Benny shrugged, man he keeps getting louder.

"Quiet!" Ethan hissed looking around.

"Easy. It's Reverend Black's followers...who as we know...is Gramps." I sighed.

"Wow, so this is why you both get better marks than me in English, huh?" Benny smirked.

"Yeah...that and we don't call the teacher 'fart-head' to his face." Ethan scoffed.

"Point taken." Benny pursed his lips, "There's a second video file on the other drive."

Ethan clicked it and a Dusk trailer popped up, "Ahh! It burns!" I joked bringing my hands up to cover my eyes after it finished at the same time Benny exclaimed, "Why is that on there?"

"Wait. What did the poem say about the swallowed moon?" Ethan asked but Benny shrugged saying he didn't know.

"Oh my gosh, Ethan, that's it. Tonight's the lunar eclipse and there's going to be over-"

"200 kids at that screening...two hundred and nineteen souls."

"No. Don't say it." Benny shook his head erratically, "Do not say it."

"Hey. What'd I miss?" Sarah asked plopping down next to Ethan.

"The absolute worst news yet." Benny signed putting his head on my shoulder.

"We have to go see Dusk III."

Thanks for the follows and fovorites! Clancy1018, Cmonslytherin, , EWOC, FinalFantasyCrazedGirl01, HarryPotterGeek7-31, Hermy Jane Weasly, Himeno Kasehito, ImAliAndImFabulous0218, Jenny-Sweet-Fire, JewelofthePhoenix, JillianDunbar, KitCat72, Lilangel1236, Lilmissy235, MarauderGirl13, Meekasa, Meganwholivesathome, MewChiiLi, MidnightPhantom84, MischievousAngel0923, OhBeClever, PastCrescentFuture, Sandy2417, StarHobbit, SuperManIsActuallyClarkKent, TheDutchLeprechaun, TiredOfBeingNice, YamamotoFan, black-cherry-blossoms98, divergentlover523, fifi550, fudgin-mothertrucker, honestly. . , jewelcutie2001, neywalker5, roseruby417, rosymax9, , vampireloverbaby, .gallifrey, BabyAngel1220, CaptainSparkly, CatchingRainbows, Hufflepuff Hex, JasmineChyanne, MarvelWorksWonders, Raven Winter, RoxyNoName, Silver Duck, arianabeavers12, rmisime

Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I loved hearing from you! Thank you guys for sticking with this! Really sorry again, it just got hectic here! I should have another chapter up by this time next week or earlier. Kisses!