Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight (I do not believe in putting disclaimers on every chapter like other authors do, so this is the only one you will see)

Chapter 1

It wasn't until I was six years old that I began to question who I was. I had always known that I was different, but my family had always told me that my being different meant that I was special and someway better than the rest of them. A lot of things happened when I was six, the most important being that I started school. Yes, I was a year older than everyone else, but for some reason that was the age when my parents thought that I was ready. The other big thing that happened was that my sister suddenly stopped growing at around the same age as the rest of my family already was. This left me being the only child in the family and the only one who was… different. School changed things. Kindergarten suddenly opened me up to the real world, and I began to realize from that point on that I really wasn't special - I was the same as everybody else. Except for my family, of course. I couldn't help but begin to see myself as weak, inferior and human, because my family had been the people who'd I'd grown up around and I couldn't help but compare myself to them.

It wasn't particularly a depressing thought always on my mind, but as I grew up it was an uncomfortable feeling that was stored somewhere in the back of my head - that I wasn't good enough. My family tried to tell me otherwise but the feeling never went away. I already knew about my family being vampires, but it wasn't weird because I was used to their having to go on hunting trips and being outrageously fast and strong. I used to have 'pseudo' arm wrestling matches with my Uncle Emmett until he accidently broke my wrist and my dad made the game come to an end(I always lost anyway, and Emmett used to find them more funny than I found them fun).

In the fifth grade my aunt told me about my real parents and why I had become a Cullen. I had found that anything that my parent's didn't want me to know I could usually coax out of my Aunt Alice. Alice told me, in summary, that the reason I was still alive was because I had a strange power that allowed me to sense other vampire's powers in my mind. This wasn't news to me: ever since I was little I was told to keep my 'power' a secret from others. My 'power' was what let me sense a vampire's aura, or at least that's what I called it. Whenever Dad read my thought's I could feel his aura. It was a feeling of my mind being pushed around inside my head, it was uncomfortable but I'd gotten used to it. My mom's aura was like a warm blanket wrapping around my mind and felt calming and nice. She told me that when I was a baby I used to fall asleep immediately just by having her put her shield around me. My ability only worked selectively. Dad says that it's exactly how my mom's works, only on vampire's whose power's are of the mind. Overall, I was pretty familiar with the capabilities of my special skill. What was alarming about what Alice told me that day was the fact that Aro, my patron, had nearly killed me and that my useless power was what had ended up saving me. He couldn't take care of me himself so then he sent me to my family. I never liked Aro. Besides scaring me half to death his aura was like a needle painfully pricking my mind. I'd only met him three times but I could remember each time vividly, every jab at my mind a portion of my thoughts being transferred to his.

It shouldn't have been alarming to my family then, when in the seventh grade I learned to block my mind from the torments that came from my 'power'. In the beginning it took a long time and a lot of focus. I had to close my eyes and picture in my head building a tower of bricks around my mind to close of any unwanted prowlers. I would sit on my bed and focus all of my mind on lifting a brick and placing it on my wall until there was a continuous tower surrounding my mind and letting nothing in. As long as I stayed focused on that tower then no one, including my parents could use their powers over me. As I became a little older the need to focus on my tower grew less and now, at 16, I only need to think of my tower vaguely to be able to block my mind. One would think that what with my family and Aro I would be constantly blocking my mind, but, frankly, it becomes a hassle to always think of one thing. I sighed inwardly, a joy of being human: not being able to have multiple thoughts at a time.

A bell sounded but before I could pack up my French textbook and workbook in my backback I was interrupted by Madame Livaugh calling me.

"Lucy. Please come up here."

Madame Livaugh was a short and stout woman with short black hair that was graying along the edges. She wore round glasses that hung on a colored lanyard around her neck. She was a strict teacher and none of the students particularly liked her. I walked up to her desk from my own in the far corner of the room.

"Yes, Madame Livaugh?" She had a slight frown on her face and I was curious to know what she wanted to talk to me about. Had my grade dropped that dramatically since the last time I'd checked? I sneakily edged around her desk so that I could see what was on her computer screen at the time.

Cullen, Lucia Elisabetta (92.36%) A

My percentage was a little lower than I expected it to be, yet it wasn't anything to be alarmed about. I looked back at Madame Livaugh questioningly.

"Lucy, I have been trying to get a hold of your parents for conferences for a long time now. I have sent letters and emails. Your father keeps saying that he has a full time job and has no time for conferences." She paused and sighed. I stayed quiet, my dad didn't have a job and I knew it. The problem was that, if my parents came in, Madame Livaugh would quickly see that they looked barely older than myself, and that would just cause unnecessary questions of age and adoption regulations which were topics that my family tried to avoid unless it was absolutely needed.

She continued, "Your mother seems to have the same problem. Your father suggested that we have a.." her face screwed up in a look of concentration "an online chat, I think he called it. It sounds too complicated, though. I just barely got used to this online grade booking, and email is still giving me trouble." I almost rolled my eyes. Leave it to my dad to come up with some weird technology based way to contact my teachers. "Is there any way you could talk either one of your parents into coming in to talk to me the old-fashioned way?" she finished. I almost laughed at the 'old-fashioned' comment, but succeeded in keeping a straight face.

I side-stepped the question, knowing that she probably wouldn't be satisfied. "I don't think so, Madame Livaugh. My parents are both very busy people."

I was right, she didn't look satisfied, in fact she looked like she was going to argue. I looked pointedly at the clock next to the door, hoping she would catch on and drop the subject.

"But… Oh, alright. Off you go, don't be late to your next class."

I thanked her and left the room, grabbing my raincoat from the hook next to the door. I would let Dad know about the conference issue later.