bear with me. it's certainly been a while and the gods know my grammar sucks.
i own nothing

the top 10 reason's why fairy tales wouldn't work out in New York

I'm facing my death here and I'm about to have a flashback. Way to go God! I have all of 5 seconds to live and you're divulging all of my life's secrets now?!Got the meaning of life or the purpose of Stone Hedge you want to tell me?

I shivered and wondered if Caius would let me live through this memory before he cut me up and burned me. Probably not, he'd let me live through it so I knew what I was missing out on.

I had much more simple thoughts, I was hungry, rather thirsty but I didn't know the difference. My hair was being pulled in every which direction and I squirmed against it.

"Stop it!" Rosalie laughed. I recognized her voice and my body calmed down instead of jumping with the anxiety I knew I wanted to feel. This got me more agitated but I was quickly mellowed out once more.

"You're precious," she turned me around and tapped me on the nose. "You look beautiful darling," she swiveled around the computer chair we were sitting in so I could see my reflection in the mirror. Well, the vampire certainly knew how to dress hair even if she lacked the ability to understand body language.

"You do know you've been a pain in my neck," she whispered. "Now don't tell you're dad I said that. He'll be all noble and he has every right to be, I would want to keep you to myself too. Something tells me you're going to be some serious trouble in Alice's foggy future so I want you to hold on to this."

She put a small silver chain around my waist. "It's really a necklace but Bella won't know the difference and Edward will be too love struck to care. It's just in case you get lost. You know, fly your way back home."

I looked at it and started to play with it. To any intelligent being it would look like a silver belt around a tiny child that had a wing hanging down on the left side. To me it was a new toy and I sat bouncing it up and down and giggling. Rosalie laughed softly and handed me a crystal that caught the light and shone. That explains the obsession with shiny things....

I snapped out of the memory with a jolt that gave me a head ache and left voices in my head saying things too low for me to catch. I shook them away and grumbled, trying to walk away before I walked square into Caius's chest. Damn his height.

Ok, do you know that when you're about to die the weirdest, most pointless things go through your mind? Well there I was, pinned by Caius facing death by capture and sentence by Aro or death by monologue. Either way I wasn't going to enjoy any of my last day in Italy and for some obscure reason I was thinking about how I never got to take a biology exam.

"Any last words?" he asked with that grim smile on his face.

"Yeah, did you at any one moment like me?" I asked him.

"What?" he started but stopped. "That's a serious question?"

"Yes," I told him angrily as he looked at me in brief disbelief. I looked at the knife and then back at his face. "Honest answer, did you?"

"Do you even remember what I got you on your sixth birthday?" his shoulders relaxed and I smirked.

"No." I said flatly before swinging one of my legs up and kicking him in the nose. While he was falling back I grabbed the sword-knife-cutlass thing and slammed him against the wall. This would have been the perfect time to had said "oh how the tables have turned" but it didn't seem appropriate now that it was clichéd.

He didn't look surprised or even unhappy. In fact, if anything he looked proud. Some girls were Daddy's Little Princess; I was the Pocket-Sized Traitor Killing Machine. Yes, I could completely see why he would be beaming in pride. It didn't make any difference that he had taught me enough to overpower him in my feeble state of mortality, the fact was that he killed my family and it was only fair for me to do the same.

I had the blade positioned perfectly against his chest. He palms faced me, spread out at his waist in innocence. His expression changed once more to entertainment and I adopted the confused one.

"Do it," he challenged. "You can, you have to."

I thought of how he had done the same thing to my beloved family and saw my hand tremor so I knew Caius felt it. He did what any one of us would have done if another hesitated and tried to pull a move on me. Even though my reflexes were no where near as heightened as his I still was able to stab the knife hard enough to pin his shoulder into the wall. He pulled it out in agony, the first real pain he had felt in years and marveled at the deep scarlet of his own blood.

He sheathed the sword without cleaning off his own blood. And Caius's right arm hung dead at his size and blood streamed down from his shoulder. I couldn't have felt worse. I missed, he was three feet in front of me and I missed his damn heart!

Caius took a step toward me, and another, and another until he had actually passed me. I stepped to the side, the back of Caius feet bordering sunlight but his eyes hazed forward. He took one more step forward and turned around to face me. His eyes closed and his skin became faceted and gleamed in the sunlight like a prism. The only imperfection was from the wound I had caused that still bled scarlet.

"This isn't your life," he told me. "Alec will meet you at the airport."

I could only stare for that moment before he barked for me to leave. I was still pondering weather it was a trick that the sunlight had not killed him but I took a leap of faith and ran into the marketplace.

I took my longest strides and ducked under baskets and kiosks and slid through a carpet dealer's shipment, grabbing a set of sunglasses and a scarf off shop displays. I was sure some part of me would feel guilty for stealing but it was a bit odd to see some girl running around in once expensive clothing that hung in rags who smelt like she lived under a bridge.

It was the same human part of me that told me hot wiring a Yamaha motorcycle that reeked tourist was wrong. It was a good thing the moral-lacking vampire part of me overruled. Let's see, if Ampugnano was about 54 kilometers from here I could get there in 54 minutes if I drove at a normal speed. This meant if I tested my reflexes by driving 80+ km/h then I would get there even faster.

Then I picture my frail body plastered against the side of some car. Not the best way to die.... Ah well, Aro's going to kill me anyway. Might as well be able to chose of at least blame it on myself during my self-righteous quest to find out who the hell I was. Too bad a certain someone who shall no longer be named killed my parents so this will be exponentially more difficult.

I revved the motor bringing up a mental map of the terrain. If Caius and Alec were pulling for me then I could swing Corin, Heidi, and Marcus easy. Everyone else would be after my blood. Demetri was a major threat, just like that car barreling down the road toward me.

Quickly turning I took a deep breath and gagged. Stupid bugs. Note to self: buy helmet and/or surgeon's mask. I had to do that and seriously clean off my sunglasses. I was still on the Via Giosuè Carducci which I had to follow about 13 km. It was a really beautiful piece of pavement but there was major traffic (somehow, I didn't know how, but it was Aro's fault) so I was weaving through lanes gunning the engine until I thought it would burn out.

The vampire of me took control and I zoned out, trying not to gag at car exhaust. It was weird, I had seen all these things in pictures but nothing could describe the feeling of the wind blowing my hair back or the sun warming the very core of my body.

Soon enough I was turning off to the airport. I didn't bother parking my new motorcycle, I kind of just let it drop next to a taxi and the driver was yelling at me in Italian before I snapped my bug covered sunglasses in a trash can and walked through.

Alec wasn't at all hard to find. She was giddy, jumping around at every noise which meant that she was practically vibrating. When she spotted me she whipped off her own pair of shades and made sure it was me that was alive.

"What the hell took so long?" she hissed.

"Traffic," I muttered. "I stabbed Caius, tell him I'm sorry and if this is a trick you can both burn in hell."

"I'm sure Aro will arrange that last thing," she fussed around her bag for some papers. "Ok, this is your passport," she shoved a red pamphlet at me. "This is you're wallet. It has about five hundred dollars and your flight ticket in it, when you land in New York you should go to the nearest ATM and withdraw the maximum amount you can for these cards."

"Small bills, I know," I got in, shoving them into my red wallet. She was speeding at a human pace but it was hard for me to keep up. "My name is Erin?"

"I was short on time!" she snapped. "Do you know how hard it is to type in these god forsaken taxis? Anyway, you're going to need these contacts," she handed me a small green and white circular box. "They're blue but you're eyes will turn the purple, hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," I put them in without washing my hands and saw them semi-distort the world around me.

"I packet like 8 pairs so if they burn up from the acid in your eyes you'll have to change them," Jane gave me her backpack. "Clothes. Normal American clothes, please pardon their terrible taste but it's what will blend you in. Oh, and there is a cell phone with numbers for me, Caius, and Athenodora. We're pulling for you!"

She gave me two light kisses on the cheeks and practically pushed me through security.

"Oh, one more thing!" she shoved it into the bin that went through the X-ray machine and I hurried to retrieve it. "Happy Birthday!"

"Thanks!" I yelled back at her but Alec was already gone. I rolled my eyes but I was willing to bet anything that she heard me. Aro would believe Alec because she was one of his favorites, like me. I was also willing to bet that she could act like she was totally pissed at me for leaving.

I looked down at the plastic tray on the conveyer belt and smiled. Rosalie's necklace. I clasped it behind my neck and looked at my reflection in the shine of the x-ray. My eyebrows lowered and I quickly took it off, I was right, the single wing's imperfection wasn't an imperfection at all.

It was an address.

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ok, really got to go here people. anyone who has read this far is obligated to review. if you flame my grammar link me to a beta please, didn't have time to proof read.

:)

-jace