NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

I did a lot of research for this fic on the Kosovo War, because I really wanted it to be accurate. I also made sure that the pronunciations were as close to Serbian as possible, and were not completely Americanized pronunciations.

PRONUNCIATION NOTE:

Natalia's last name, Ristić, is pronounced RIST-itch; What Alek calls her, Milošević, is pronounced me-LOSH-ah-vitch

Chapter 1

"Bombs Away is Your Punishment"

Natalia didn't even know if she should have been hanging out with them. They seemed like nice people, but that was just it...they were human. They weren't like her. They didn't understand. Even if she told them what was going on with her, she didn't think that they would be open to it. After all, she had supersonic hearing and six-inch claws that sprang out of her fingers when she was angry. She kept picking at her food absent-mindedly, using their conversations as senseless background noise.

"You don't look too appetized with your food there, Milošević." Alek remarked, making her look up at him. Milošević. God, how she hated it when he called her that. He insisted on referring to her with it because he thought it was cool, when in reality, it was just really annoying and extremely rude. She had a name, and it was most definitely not that of someone who had been indicted with crimes against humanity. "Maybe something that's not on your plate would be able to catch your attention." He winked.

"Get real, Commie." She savored the look in his eyes when she said that. Something inside her had to keep from laughing along with all the other people at the table. Paul and Amy snickered, Jasmine laughed loudly, and Chloe covered her mouth to disguise a giggle as a cough. He mocked her being Serbian, so she mocked his being Russian. Of course, it was a lot more fun to make fun of him being raised in England. Sometimes she called him a twat, and other times she called him a chav.

"At least I'm not a hippie." He chuckled, shoveling food down his mouth. The rest of their table found this much more entertaining than anything that television could offer. Alek and Natalia constantly bickered with each other, with Alek finding it funny, and Natalia...well, she just saw it as insulting.

"I am not a hippie. I'm a vegetarian." She also hated it when he called her a hippie. Being a vegetarian was something that she was extremely strict about. No meat. Not now, not ever. When she was first adopted and brought back to San Francisco, she had terrible nightmares about the airstrike on her town. The smell and sight of burning flesh was imprinted into her mind, and she couldn't get rid of it.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Alek was already done with his plate of food. She didn't know where it all went. He ate three times faster and three times more than a normal human, and you didn't even notice it when you looked at him. She did like to look at him, but only for the purpose of just that. She would never consider an actual date with him, even if she were human. He was arrogant and rude. She grumbled, pushing her tray of food at him. "Thanks, Milošević."

"Don't call me that!" She snapped angrily, making a look of uncharacteristic shock appear on his face. She got up from the table, slamming her hands on the top of it. She burned into Alek with her blue eyes. "You say it like it's a joke! Milošević was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity! He is the reason that I'm sitting across from you at this stupid table!" A slight Serbian accent had come out as she was yelling at him. Her adoptive father had roots in Belgrade, and he taught her how to speak Serbian. She had even been there a few times in the past couple of years with him and her adoptive mother. When she was in the United States, she was easily able to mask her accent. She knew that she shouldn't have been ashamed of it, but she was. People like Alek were thought of as gods because they way the spoke was "posh and British", which was clearly incorrect, because there was no such thing as a British accent; his was English. She was thought of as a terrorist or an evil leftist because idiotic people thought her accent was Russian. It made it even worse when she told them she was Serbian, so she just ignored it.

"Natalia, I didn't know-"

"I bet you didn't know that he started the Kosovo War, either." She said bitterly, gritting her teeth. "That war is the reason that I'm even in this goddamn country for Christ's sake! My family died because of an 'accidental' NATO airstrike on my town. It was an accident that could have been avoided had Milošević not started that war!" She could feel the eyes of the people cafeteria staring at her and Alek. It was dead silent. "Do you know what it's like to be asked if someone should call NATO on you? Do you know how it feels to be asked if you wanted to be knocked up so that you could acquire a visa to this country?" She ran out of the cafeteria with tears falling out of her eyes. They weren't tears of sadness. Only tears of anger and rage.

Alek stood up to go and apologize, but Jasmine pulled him back down. "Don't get too involved. She'll be fine." Sometimes he found her insight annoying. But this time, he knew that she was right. Natalia was human...as far as he knew. Valentina had asked he, Jasmine, and Chloe to befriend her to see if she was Mai. That was weeks ago.

"You like her, don't you?" Chloe said quietly, seeing remorse in his eyes. It was very un-Alek, so she picked it up almost immediately from his empathetic imprint. He continued to pick at the tray of food Natalia had given him. Somehow, he didn't feel hungry anymore.

"That's bollocks." He mumbled, giving up on the thought of trying to eat something. He looked at Jasmine for help, but she had the same look on her face as Chloe did. He was too sensible when it came to human/Mai relations. Liking Natalia wasn't something in his character, but he wouldn't have ruled it out. She was pretty...he would definitely give her that. But there were plenty more girls in the school who were willing to have his children, all while being drop-dead gorgeous. He guessed that he liked her because she wasn't willing to even be in a relationship with him...but that was because she found him repulsively arrogant.

"You're lying!" The Uniter laughed, sensing it within seconds of the words leaving his mouth. He was a very convincing liar, and she had to give him that. But he wasn't convincing enough for her. He looked up at her, narrowing his eyes.

"Prove it."

She knew that an empathetic imprint wasn't enough to prove it to anyone, since she was the only one who could see it. "You flirt with her constantly." It was the only thing that she could think of.

"I flirt with everyone, sweetheart." He rolled his eyes. That was true. Actually, he didn't think that he flirted with Natalia more than other girls, and even if he did, nobody would have noticed it. He was still trying to find out why even liked her versus any other human girl. He supposed that it was because he couldn't have her. Then again, he couldn't have any human girl. He thought about it if she were Mai. He didn't see her of the type of girl who was the needy type...and he saw a lot of girls who were the needy type. If she were Mai, she wouldn't feel obligated to date him. That was it.

She was someone that he couldn't have, regardless of species.

"You're still lying." She was completely determined to get him on this. He was a hypocrite for choking on his words. He said that falling in love with a human, or even considering a romantic relationship with one was totally irrational and stupid on the Mai's part. Again, he turned to Jasmine for help, but she wasn't giving it to him. Instead, she was giving him a look of what he called "impending doom", which meant that he had to answer to Chloe now.

"Bro, you're screwed in as many directions as a Konami code." Paul laughed. He got daggers from Alek, and looks of plain confusion from everybody else. "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A." He mumbled, twiddling his thumbs.

"It's nothing." Alek said passively, giving a shrug. He wasn't only trying to convince them, he was trying to convince himself. They all stared him down until he would crack, but he refused to. "I'll get over it." Another lie, which everyone could see right through.

"Well, if Natalia turns out to be human, Valentina won't be too jazzed about finding out that you have feelings for her." Jasmine tried to force some sense into his reckless mind. She hoped that it would work just once.

"Valentina won't be jazzed about finding out, because Valentina won't find out." He directed his gaze toward all the people at the table. When Amy and Paul avoided his eyes, he got up and put his arms around their shoulders. "Right?" He growled, sending shivers up their spines.

"Right." They both said at the same time. They knew that Alek had the balls to kill, but they didn't know if he had the balls to kill them. But then again, it only mattered what he was capable of, and that was all it took for them to agree with him.

"What more have you three observed about the Ristić girl?" Valentina asked Chloe, Alek, and Jasmine. She was sitting across from the three of them in her chair, while they were on the couch. Chloe and Jasmine looked extremely uptight, but Alek was as laid-back as usual. "Alek, get your feet off the table." She growled.

He sighed, sliding them them onto the floor. "Well, she definitely hates Alek more than the normal person." Chloe rolled her eyes. She didn't know how he did it. You always hated Alek, but then he grew on you, and you couldn't stop it from happening. "She went ballistic on him today."

"Her whole family was killed by an accidental NATO strike in Serbia during the Kosovo War." He mumbled, remembering the words clear as day. He never felt bad when someone yelled at him like that. He just laughed it off. But this time, he couldn't. He felt like there was a cloud above his head, and he couldn't get rid of it. "How was I supposed to know?"

"She's Serbian?" Nobody had told Valentina that before. That changed everything. There was no doubt in her mind that the girl was Mai. Not only that, but she was extremely dangerous. Valentina ran to her room, and plucked a cut-out newspaper article from a folder on one of her shelves. When she came back to the room, she handed it to Chloe. "We lost contact with the Serbian pride that day."

"Oh my God..." Chloe was completely shocked. Natalia was obviously very sensitive to things that had to do with the war, and she had a reason to be.

"The Order carried this operation out by using the war as a successful cover. They made similar attacks on Russia and Ukraine." Valentina was well aware that those were the two attacks that left Alek and Chloe orphans. "The war left the Serbian pride scarred. It wasn't like them to be ambushed so easily. They were extremely loyal to each other, and if someone got in the way they would become unbelievably volatile. It wasn't a bomb that killed them; it was fire and bullets."

"So she's Mai?" Alek asked his adoptive aunt.

"She is most definitely Mai."

Sorry if it's too short. :( I got some people saying really nice things about the preface, so hopefully this followed it up nicely. And if you're wondering who Milošević was, he was a Serbian dictator, and most of the reason behind the Kosovo War. I suggest that you look him up.

It just figures that I would do insane research on a fanfic, yet refuse to do research for school. :P

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