It's been a week since Alec and Felix arrived here and it's been a pretty exciting week. Other than the eyes, diet, and family life, Emmett and Felix are almost like the same person. I always thought Emmett was a pain in the butt, pulling pranks on me and wrestling me to the ground, but now I have to watch out for Felix too. They both have the same spirit for scaring the crap out of pretty girls. When I left the cottage and began walking to the main house, I noticed that everyone was gathering in the backyard. I also noticed that Emmett and Felix had taken their shirts off and were bending over a large rock.

While I was trying to analyze the situation, I walked over to Alec. When he noticed that I was there, he looked very pleased to see me for some reason. "Good morning Renesmee."

"Good morning, Alec. What are they doing?"

"Felix and Emmett are having an arm-wrestling contest."

"Why?"

"They want to see who's stronger. They've been have challenging each other all night."

Wow, this is really stupid. "Hey Nessie, who are you betting on? Me or Felix?"

"Felix."

"What, why?"

"Because, he drinks human blood so he's naturally going to be stronger than you."

"I can't believe this. My own niece is betting against me."

"I'm sorry. I'm just stating a fact."

Then, Uncle Jasper explained that it was going to be a "fair fight" and counted to three. When he got to three, before anyone could comprehend what had happened, Felix pinned Emmett's hand down so hard that it shattered the rock and made him fall to the ground. After Emmett got up off of the ground, he walked away, swearing and grumbling to himself how Felix had "cheated".

"Hey Alec, do you want to get out of here?"

"Yeah, where are we going?"

"To hunt." I couldn't help but giggle at the sour look that formed on his face. "Don't worry. You don't have to kill anything, you just have to come with me, remember?"

"Yeah, let's go." We ran together until we reached the center of the woods, my favorite place to hunt. I could tell that he was running a lot slower than he usually did to keep up with me. After running for a few minutes, I caught the sent of a bear, so I touched his arm to alert to him that I was changing direction. We stopped near a large oak tree, which was near a river that the bear was drinking from. After a few seconds of mental preparation, I pounced on the bear and sucked him dry. I usually drink from two animals at a time, but this bear was pretty large, so one was enough. When I stood up to straighten out my clothes, Alec was staring at me and he looked amused. When I was finally satisfied that my outfit was realigned, I made Alec follow me to the meadow that my parents used to go to when they were dating. For some reason, they have stopped coming here since then, so I have made it my own personal refuge.

"Renesmee, what is this place?"

"It's the meadow my parents used to come to before they got married."

"Used to?"

"Yeah, I decided to make it my place because they stopped coming. I can't understand why though. It's so beautiful here."

"Why is it that we've been here for a whole week and this is the first time you've gone hunting? And why didn't you go with the rest of your family last night?" Well that was unexpected.

"Well, I'm not a big fan of animal blood, so I try to hunt as little as possible. I've found that hunting once a week is enough to keep me in control. And I didn't hunt with everyone last night because hunting is my time to just be by myself. Then I come here and look at my pictures."

"What pictures?"

With a smile, I walked over to a large rock, moved it, and took out a small wooden box. When I moved the rock back, I walked over to Alec, opened the box, and showed him what's inside.

"The reason why I hunt by myself, and come here afterwards is that ever since the confrontation with you guys seven years ago, my family has become extremely overbearing and overprotective of me. They won't let me go anywhere or do anything by myself. It's like they've forced me to become dependent on them. It's really sad, I've been alive for almost seven years, and I've never even left the state. So I come out here and look at these pictures of different places and things from all over the world because it's probably as close to traveling as I'll ever get." I don't know why I'm spilling my guts out to him, but it feels good. To be able to talk to someone about my feelings without being interrupted or misunderstood. He's a really good listener.

"So, why do they want you to be dependent on them?"

"I don't know for sure, but my theory is that if I become independent, they're afraid that I'll leave and go off on my own."

"Why is that such a bad thing?"

Okay, this is really embarrassing. "It would be bad because I wouldn't be able to defend myself."

"Why not?"

"Like I said, I'm dependent. I've asked before, but they refuse to let me learn to fight. It's just another way to keep me stuck here in Forks I guess."

"Well then, I'm going to teach you."

"Teach me what?"

"How to fight."

"Why would you want to help me?"

"Because it's irresponsible for them not to teach you. Every vampire should know how to fight and protect themselves. Even if they live with an extremely protective family."

For the next few hours, long into the early evening, Alec taught me how to duck, lunge, kick, punch, pretty much everything he was taught when he was in training to be a guardsman. Something unexpected about Alec is that he's a really good teacher. He was very gentle and kind and patient with me. He made sure I knew how to do one thing before we moved on to something else. He didn't rush me, which is good because I hate it when people rush me. A few small trees got knocked down and some flowers and bushes got crushed, but all in all it was a very successful day. After he was satisfied that I knew enough to get me through life, we sat down under a huge, shady oak tree to rest before going back to the house.

"So Alec, why don't you tell me a bit about yourself. I mean if it's alright with you."

"Why?"

"Well, it's just that I feel like you know almost everything there is to know about me and yet I know virtually nothing about you."

"Alright, what do you want to know?"

"Anything you're comfortable with telling me."

"Okay, well Jane and I were born in England in 800 A.D. Our mother, like all women in those days, was just a housewife and our father was a soldier. Our powers weren't very developed at the time, considering the fact that we were still human, but we still had a type of control over the townspeople. Somehow, bad things would happen to anyone that was unkind to us or our family. But people that were kind to us experienced happiness and good fortune. Eventually some superstitious locals decided that Jane and I were witches and condemned us to be burned at the stake when we were in our late teens. Years before this, when we were very young children, Aro discovered us and took a great interest in us because even though we were human, we still showed some strong psychic-type powers. But, because of the law that there is to be no tolerance of the creation of immortal children, he decided to wait until we were older before he acted. Minutes before we died, Aro showed up, changed us, and took us to Volterra. Apparently he had been told of our execution by a nomad that knew about his interest in us. So, Aro created Jane and I a little over 1200 years ago, and we've been with the Volturi ever since. That's really all there is to tell about me."

"Wow, I had no idea that your human life was so difficult."

"Yeah, this life makes up for it though. Aro is like a father to us. He's the one that created us, after all, and he treats us like we are his children."

"So, weird question, but have you ever had a girlfriend or anything like that?" Why did I ask him that? Or, here's a better question, why did I care?

"Um, no. Not many members of the guard have mates and only the masters can have wives."

"Why?"

"Well, it has to do with distraction. It's alright if we have mates but Aro's afraid that if we have husbands or wives, we would become too preoccupied with that and begin to ignore our responsibilities to the guard."

"How does a mate versus a spouse make a difference?"

"I honestly don't know how there's a difference, but Aro seems to think that there is one. But, why do you care if I've ever had a girlfriend or not?"

Because I really like you. This is what I was dying to say but I didn't dare say it. I mean, how stupid would I look if I, a Cullen, told a Volturi guard that I liked him? He probably doesn't even like me. But then, I was proven to be extremely wrong when he began to lean in, like he was about to kiss me. But when his lips were just inches away from mine, we heard a loud rustle in the woods. When we turned towards the direction of the noise, we were faced with my friend, Jacob Black.