Her life before she became a vampire wasn't something that Mina liked to dwell on, if anything she was trying her hardest to forget it all. For the most part, a lot of her early and formative years were becoming increasingly fuzzy, a consequence of her living as long as she had. Yet there were some memories that were increasingly hard to shake off. It was if the harder Mina tried to forget, the more prominent those few memories seemed to get.

The one thing she wanted to remember, seemed to be the one thing she could never remember. Perhaps the biggest gap in Mina's memory was the events leading up to how she had become a vampire.

The entire thing was a bit of a blank actually, and the more Mina tried to remember the more fuzzy it seemed to forget. All that Mina knew was that she had 'died' during the spring but during that time there had been a great storm, a terrible one at that and she could remember it being more cold than her young years could ever remember. Her death was something that Mina could recall. No amount of time could cause those memories to ever fade into the background.

Even now Mina could close her eyes and relieve the whole experiencing over again as if it happened feeling of ice cold water flooding her from the inside out. Her lungs were burning, Mina couldn't breathe or even think properly. She was drowning, that much Mina could afford to assume but after that things went dark and then came even more pain, the excoriating red hot pain that was consuming her entire body.

The transition.

For Mina it felt like her entire body was on fire for days as the venom from the bite took charge over her body like a virus, working it's way through her entire system infecting everything in its path. The pain was like nothing else Mina had ever experienced before, it was slow and painfully agonising with nothing to ease any of the harsh suffering. A delirious fever like dream. It was unbearable and all Mina wanted to do was be able to sleep and have a reprieve from the pain. The torment went on for endless days until it was finally gone and Mina woke up all alone. No longer a witch like she had been since the time of her birth. Now and forever more a vampire, with no idea who turned her to begin with.

To this day it was still something that Mina was clueless about and it wasn't something that she entertained in her mind that often. If she hadn't found out by now who was responsible for turning her, then she probably never would, so why dwell in it? Mina had died in the spring of 1772, at the tender age of seventeen, three weeks after her birthday.

Over two hundred years had passed since that day. And ever since then Mina had been running.

From everything that she once knew, and everything she still knew, Mina would never be able to stop running. One of the few strong memories that Mina had of her life before she died was of a stark warning,the fear that came across with every spoken word.

"You must leave, it is no longer safe for you here… You have to keep running my little moon, even if you are exhausted you must keep running. You can never come back here, you can never let them find you. No one can know the truth about who you are... It is the only way for you to stay alive.".

It was a rather strange thing, Mina couldn't remember who this woman was, her memories betraying her in that aspect. Yet, deep down for some reason Mina knew that she had trusted whoever this woman had been and somehow they had been important to her. It was the only way to explain why after so long, this one memory was still so strong for her. That stark warning was the reason why to this day Mina was still running and took on so many extra precautions such as her name.

Wilhelmina Maksimov wasn't her real name, but rather a name that she had chosen for herself in order to stay safe. No one could find her if they didn't know who she really was. If Mina was being honest she had grown rather attached to the name, hence why she was still using it now, it had kept her safe for two hundred years. It was perhaps the one thing that Mina truly had control over in her life now, as her life had forever changed those two centuries ago.

No longer human, or a witch as she had previously been in her former life but now a vampire. It was a far cry from Mina's former life, as a witch she was a servant of nature and connected to the mystical energies of this world. That connection was severed at the time of her transition and Mina had lost her magic. She couldn't be both a witch and a vampire, it didn't work like that. Mina could only be one of them and there had been no choice for her. She had been turned against her will and had to live with the consequences with that as the only other option was death and even though Mina hadn't been thrilled to become a vampire, she certainly didn't want to die either.

At least being a vampire meant that Mina could let go of the painful details of her past, her memories of her human life would continue to slowly dull away as the decades rolled past. No longer was Mina bound by the rules of witchcraft but rather by her own rules. She was a nomad, an animal and had no place in interacting with others.

Back in 1772 shortly after Mina had been turned into a vampire she had made a promise to herself. She swore to be by herself, to dwell in the darkness like the vampire stereotype dictated and if she lived that way then the years would be a little more bearable. Mina guessed it was her punishment for what she had done and now she had to live her eternal life by herself.

The loneliness ached but Mina knew that she had to keep to herself, not to interact with people and keep off the beaten track. If she did that then things would be better and nobody else would get hurt. It was hard doing the right thing but then again the guilt that plagued Mina also managed to motivate her to stay by herself. The memories of the carnage she had caused and the blood she had spilt seemed to haunt her, if it was possible to sleep than Mina was sure that it would haunt her dreams but as vampires couldn't sleep, the memories just haunted her every waking moment which was every second of the day. It served as a constant reminder of why Mina had to remain by herself.

Mina had made sure that she was alone, never coming into close proximity with anyone. Part of that meant that Mina had to keep moving along to new places as people would notice if someone didn't age after a prolonged amount of time. Previously Mina had been living in Chicago, in fact she had rather liked living in the so-called windy city, she had been able to live a somewhat normal life in the shadows, making sure not to draw too much attention to herself. Mina had only been living in Chicago for six months but now Mina was here in Alaska.

The move was rather unexpected, the plan was to stay in Chicago for at least another year, maybe even two until two days ago. It was surreal in a way, as Mina got a strong urge to get out of Chicago, to leave the city and drag herself to Alaska, to Juneau in particular. This wasn't some kind of gut feeling, it was more than that.

It was hard to explain but she had been drawn to Juneau, almost like there was something in the air that had told Mina to come here. If she had to put it into words, Mina would say that the wind had told her something important than her guilt and loneliness was in Juneau and she would find it here. That feeling had brought her here to Juneau, but whatever was waiting for Mina she hadn't found it yet. Not that it bothered Mina as time was something that she had plenty of, and it had given her time to investigate her new environment.

Juneau wasn't Chicago but so far Mina liked It here. She had always loved being outdoors and she adored the snow. For as long as she could remember Mina had liked the colder seasons and everything that came with it. Rain, sleet, frost and snow… It's why Alaska seemed like the perfect place for her as she could go about her business and no one would be none the wiser. Nobody here would notice if it snowed out of the blue or a lot more often it should have. Mina could do whatever she wanted and not worry about the humans getting suspicious. It was the only freedom that she seemed to have.

"Wilhelmina?"

Mina couldn't help but frown at the sound of someone calling out to her.

Wilhelmina? Yes, it was her name but for a long time now she had been simply going by Mina. It was less of a mouthful. But the better question was, who the hell was calling her that name? Mina hadn't been here long enough to actually meet any that she had even made an attempt. Her whole thing was always being alone. Not to mention there wasn't supposed to be anyone around. Mina had ventured so far out into the woods that it would have been impossible to find her, even if she had left tracks, which Mina knew she hadn't. She hadn't even heard anyone approaching which was odd…

Something didn't sit right here.

She was getting sloppy in her old age.

Slowly turning around Mina caught sight of three people. Two men and one women. All three of them, too beautiful to be real. Something about them was off, they were too perfect to be human… It was only upon further scrutiny that the truth hit Mina when she saw their eyes. A rich golden honey colour that Mina recognised as her eyes, at least one of them was the very same colour. They were like her.

Vampires.

Mina looked again at the three strangers, the tall blonde with the friendly smile who seemed to radiate this unexplainable calmness. This one seemed to be the eldest, he seemed to project this maturity that Mina couldn't really explain that set him apart from his companions. Then there was the female of the group, at first Mina would have mistaken her for a boy because of her short cropped dark hair but no, she was a rather petite female judging by her clothes.

Next to her was the other male, this one was different but what caught Mina's attention was the messy crop of bronze coloured hair that seemed to be all over the place. He was holding himself back, looking at Mina with such deep concentration as if he could see inside her soul.

"She prefers Mina."

Mina narrowed her eyes at the bronze haired vampire, his words were so certain and rolled off his tongue with a rather unsettling confidence. Just how the hell did he know that?

It took Mina a moment before she realised.

This boy wasn't just any vampire. He was like her. A gifted kind of vampire.

For vampires, ones with special abilities were very rare. Mina could control the weather and this one in front of her could read people's thoughts. In her two centuries of being a vampire, Mina had only come across another two like her. This boy could be dangerous to her. Very dangerous, she needed to be careful around him, and protect her thoughts.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Mina questioned with a small frown.

"We're not here to hurt you Mina. My name is Carlisle and this is my family; Alice and Edward-"

"-Says the vampire! Forgive me for not taking your word at face value but we are all predators here…" Mina retorted straight off the tongue to the blonde man as she couldn't trust him. She didn't even know him.

Yet for some reason the small woman with the dark hair started to laugh and Mina wasn't exactly sure why as she wasn't exactly making any jokes in the slightest. "I told you that she was funny Edward!" The woman apparently named Alice laughed again, her laugh was like silver bells. They echoed with a lightness and purity that somehow connected with Mina, there was this odd feeling of familiarity despite the fact that she didn't know these people, she didn't know this woman.

Mina should have run, she should have run as fast as she could away from these people but she didn't. There was something keeping Mina here and she couldn't exactly figure out what this thing was. But whatever it was, it happened to be doing something to Mina as there was no longer this empty and hollow feeling in Mina's chest. It felt alive for the first time in decades and Mina didn't understand why.

Maybe it was because she was interacting with people like herself for the first time in years.

"Answer my question. What do you want? Better yet… Tell me how do you know who I seem to know me and yet I know nothing about you." Mina slowly asked and the woman named Alice smiled and made her way towards her. Mina wasn't afraid, somehow deep down inside she knew that this woman wasn't going to hurt her.

"Not yet. You don't know us but soon enough you're going to know us, after all that's why you're here. We've been waiting for you Mina, we've known for a while that you would end up here in Alaska and it took some time for us to find each other, but it's okay now as soon enough we'll all be together. It's why you came here to Alaska, you were looking for us just as we were looking for you." Mina had come to Alaska because the wind had whispered to her that she had to, lovingly telling her that something was waiting for her.

Here she was in Juneau and these three people, her fellow vampires were standing before her. Correction, they had been here waiting for her. All three of them were smiling at her and Mina was pretty sure that the one called Alice was right. Unknowingly she had been searching for them, the wind had brought her here because it knew that they were here. They were waiting for her.

Dead woman walking. That's all Mina could think to herself as she looked at herself in the mirror, she grimaced as she took glanced over her reflection as no matter how many times she looked at her appearance she would never get older. Forever trapped in the body of a young woman.

That was something that Mina had learned to live with centuries ago. After all she had been living for two hundred and forty nine years, that amount of time had allowed her to come to terms with what she had become. Nothing about Mina had changed in all that time since had been turned into a vampire, even the freckles that covered her nose and cheeks remained. They were still there, only slightly fainter than they once were but if you looked hard enough you could see them although not many people did as when people looked at Mina the first thing they saw were her old eyes. Her pale almost chalk like skin tone seemed to draw even more attention to Mina's odd eyes which seemed to have a life of their own.

Nobody knew why Mina had two different colour eyes. One eye was a golden honey colour, much like the rest of her family. The other eye? It was hazel. Carlisle's theory was that her odd eye colours were due to her past as a witch, that her wiccan side had been dominant and as such prevented the venom from absorbing all the blood in her body at the time of her transition. Thus leaving her with one eye different than the other, a small reminder of what she used to be. People found it interesting, even Mina's new family were fascinated by it, with her adopted brother Emmett frequently telling her that he had never seen anything so spooky and magical in his entire life.

It wasn't amazing to Mina, to her it was an imperfection and a sign that she was different from everyone else and would never fit in. That seemed to be Mina in a nutshell, it was the story of her life and death; never being like everyone else. Always being the odd one out and no matter how many times that Mina stared at her reflection it was never going to change, she was never going to be normal. Even for a vampire Mina knew that she was a freak of nature.

"I thought we had finally moved past this whole freak of nature thing a few decades ago Mina. But it seems like we're back here once again."

From looking at her own reflection in her bedroom mirror Mina could easily spot her adoptive brother Edward standing in the doorway of her bedroom with a small smirk in the corner of his mouth. For once Mina hadn't heard him come in, she supposed she had been too preoccupied drowning in her own insecurities to hear Edward come in and given the whole having enhanced senses as part of being a vampire, it was pretty hard for Mina to drift off into her own world. But it did occasionally happen such as right now.

Mina didn't bother to force a smile on her face for Edward's sake because he wouldn't believe that she was fine. He always knew that was going on in that messed up little head of hers and it had been like that ever since the day that they had met. Or so Edward liked to believe… Although Mina did have ways of keeping him out of her mind. At times Mina found it hard to believe that it was over thirty years ago when she was invited to join the Cullen coven and became a part of the family. Thirty one years ago she had become Mina Cullen and since that day, she hadn't looked back. For the most part.

"Why don't you deal with your self esteem issues before commenting on mine?" Mina shot back. Whilst she thought of herself as a freak of nature, she knew that Edward saw himself as a monster.

It was kind of funny in a way. Vampires suffering from insecurity. That day in the woods, Mina never believed that things would never end up this way, that she could finally stop running and be with people who were like her. At the time Mina had been rather overwhelmed by the three vampires who had found her and seemed to know her despite Mina never meeting them before. Mina had no intention of going with them, she had been intent on sticking to her nomad lifestyle but there was something about Edward and his companions.

It wasn't the fact that they knew Mina's name, it was something else. Something inside Mina told her that she could trust them and she had felt her defences cracking and the need for companionship sneaking it's way into her dead heart. She was no longer alone, for the first time in her life Mina had a family.

"You're rather nostalgic today." Edward noted and all Mina could do was shrug her shoulders in response.

"Of course. It's the start of a new school year, and the merry go round will begin again. I'm going to have to put up with people staring at me constantly and trying to look into my eyes. Then trying to pass them off as a result of some medical condition that I was born with. The freshman are going to be especially annoying about it..." Mina replied in a grim tone of voice as she went about picking up the jacket that she would only wear for appearances sake and slid it on.

Being a vampire in the 21st century wasn't easy, it was a lot easier back in the 18th century as you didn't have to worry about the internet, cctv, camera amongst other things. Being a vampire who lived with other vampires, who were all stuck at various perpetual ages meant that Mina and her adopted family had to move around every few years because they tended to stick out a bit and people would eventually begin to notice that they never aged.

The technological advancements in the last hundred years mean they had to be a lot careful and it wasn't just technology that made life a lot harder and had the potential to expose them. Identification and records such as birth certificates, passports and social security numbers also made life very complicated. It was all part of the headache that came with being a vampire who tried to live amongst humans in the modern world.

"So you aren't excited about another year of school?" Edward questioned in a light tone tinted with mild jest and Mina couldn't help but roll her eyes in response.

"I'm thrilled..." Mina drily quipped turning to the bronzed haired teenager standing in front of her.

Her response gathered a small but wry smile from one of her many 'brothers' she gained when she joined the Cullen's. Mina didn't have any siblings in her previous life, from what little she could remember before she became a vampire but now she had three brothers, two sisters and the best parents a person could ask for. If it wasn't for the fact that they were all vampires, you could sort of call them normal.

"It's only two more years, it'll fly by." Edward assured Mina who just narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance as that was what Edward always said.

Mina knew that she should be used to it by now, but she wasn't. Despite the fact that she was well over two hundred Mina unfortunately still looked like a teenager which meant that she was pretty much required to be in some form of education. The gift of immortality just kept on giving.

"Edward you've been hanging around with Alice way too much, your starting sound all bright, shiny and somewhat happy and like Alice when she attempts to give me one of her pep talks that she knows I hate." Mina grimly noted before laughing when the realisation about what was coming next sank in.

She may have not been the family mind reader or even see the future like Alice but even she could foresee where this conversation was heading. As for someone who wasn't what Mina would called a happy go lucky person, Edward seemed to be in a rather bright mood despite the fact most of the time he was the primordial brooding vampire which made him the perfect candidate to have a little conversation with Mina about behaving in front of the humans and dealing with her little self-control issue that reared it's head every so often.

"Alice was right not to come."

"Mina..."

"I'm not stupid. I know that you've come to give me that frankly annoying speech about the importance of exercising self control when it comes to being around the humans. I know I cannot afford to embarrass the family. Not again. No doubt Alice is doing the same thing with Jasper as we speak. Don't worry, I won't kill anyone… This time."

"Mina..." Edward began and Mina glanced at her brother, daring him to challenge her on this and say that this wasn't the conversation that Mina thought it was going to be.

Edward couldn't and so Mina knew she was right. She was always right when it came to these things. Mina's particular special talent may not be reading people's minds but she had become quite good at reading people, people watching had been a pastime of hers during her nomad days when she lurked in the shadows.

"I feel fine. You need to trust me on this…" Mina started putting emphasis on the relevant words like trust, slightly annoyed that she was having to have this discussion with her brother but she knew that they had to have this conversation. The blood craving was the worst part of being a vampire, as for their kind blood was an essential part of the vampire thing and the Cullen family were what they liked to call 'vegetarians' as they only drank animal blood to survive.

Problem was that both Mina and Jasper had some difficulties with diet because of the lives they had led prior to joining the Cullens. Jasper had only been on animal blood about fifty years now and still struggled as before he had adopted his new diet, he was basically a hardcore human blood drinker. Just like Mina.

She had been feeding on human blood up until 1939 and after that she had got on the vampire 'sober wagon' and started drinking animal blood but it was a hard adjustment as animal blood didn't exactly have the same kick as human blood. It didn't quite quench the thirst that she seemed to always have and Mina had fallen off the so called wagon pretty hard about fifteen years ago and got a taste for human blood again. It had been pretty damn messy but she was back on it the wagon. However the rest of the family were naturally concerned about her and Jasper being unable to keep their urges under control so the two of them were pretty mollycoddle by the rest of the family, in particular Alice and Edward much to Mina's irritation.

They got the same speech about staying in control, reminding themselves to think of the humans as people speech constantly especially when they moved to a new place. But they had been in Forks for two years now so Mina knew the drill. If she so much had slipped up then they would have to move and start their lives all over again somewhere else. Mina had no intention of starting as a freshman again anytime soon.

"I do. We all do."

"Was that before or after you read my mind to see whether I was harboring any homicidal urges today?" Mina retorted narrowing her eyes at her adoptive brother who just awkwardly looked to the side. Mina couldn't help but sigh as she knew that Edward couldn't help himself when it came to reading people's minds, it wasn't something that he had control over like Mina had with her gift. Edward couldn't turn the mind reading thing off even if he wanted to and he tried to give them all as much privacy as he could.

"I'm sorry." Edward began, and Mina waved her hand in a dismissive manner. Her brother apologising for something he had no control over had gotten tedious fifty years ago.

"Forget it, really. I'm not mad." Mina wasn't mad. She was pissed off but she wasn't going to say this out loud, let alone think.

She was getting sloppy. Her mind kept wandering off in english which made it very easy for Edward to know what she was thinking. She needed to revert back to russian. Living amongst her family who spoke predominantly English often meant that it was very easy for Mina to fall into that way of thinking. Yet it was Edward and his abilities that meant that Mina had to keep an vice like grip on keeping up her old russian tongue. It may not be able to stop Edward from hearing her thoughts, but it sure as hell prevented him from understanding them.

Mina turned her head turned back in the direction of her mirror, unable to help herself for looking at her appearance once again. Unlike her sister Rosalie, Mina wasn't looking at her reflection to admire how attractive she was. It was quite the opposite of that. Her insecurity over her odd appearance was pretty much self destructive and something that would never heal with time.

The wounds of the body could heal, no matter how deep they were, could heal if the pain could be endured but the wounds of the mind weren't as easy to fix. Then there were the wounds in the heart that would never heal. Mina's heart had been broken for a long time, too broken to ever be fixed and her mind was slowly heading in that same direction.

Meeting her own eyes in the mirror, Mina couldn't help but scowl in irritation as she knew this whole thing was silly, that she shouldn't be so hung up on one little thing as she was better than that, superior ever. She was faster than all humans, stronger than them and better appealing in more ways than one. Yet she was brought down by simply insecurity over her appearance.

"Hellion." Urgh. Mina knew she must be going pretty far off the deep end if her brother resorted to calling her that of all things. Hellion was a nickname that Mina had within her family because of her somewhat difficult and stubborn nature. Edward's quiet plea brought Mina back from continuing to wallow in the depths of her never insecurity.

He needn't say anything else as everything that Edward could possibly say Mina could see in his eyes, Edward's ever expressive gold eyes spoke volumes. He didn't want her to keep beating herself up over her appearance, Edward wanted Mina to be able to see herself the way that he saw her. But that was never going to happen. He didn't know the truth about who she really was.

"We should go." Mina feebly said, grabbing her backpack from her bed which was never slept in, Mina slid past Edward and wordlessly made her way downstairs so this day could already get started.

This was going to be a long day that much Mina could already tell as and that was before she had gone to school and be forced to sit through a curriculum that she knew back to front. Mina had been through it so many times that she could probably teach the material better than any of her teachers. Already Mina was dragging her feet, forcing Edward to trail along behind her at a rather slow pace.

Upon reaching the first floor Mina's eyes averted to the south facing wall - which wasn't really an actual wall given that it was made out of glass. The day seemed dreary, grey clouds hung in the sky and the weather seemed to match Mina's new found depressed mood for the most part.

If anyone outside her family looked at Mina at that precise moment they would think that she was just aimlessly looking outside and doing nothing more than that. But she wasn't. Mina was doing more than that and with a mere blink of her eyes it began to rain.

It wasn't a sudden downpour, it was subtle but nonetheless it was raining. Mina couldn't read minds like Edward or see the future like Alice but she could manipulate the weather. It was a handy little thing for a vampire to be able to do given that they tended to 'reflect' when they were in direct sunlight on sunny days. Mina got to play with the weather and she liked having it rain when she was sad, hence the rain now. Knowing that she could no longer put off the inevitable Mina skulked off in the direction of the garage where she could already see her sister Rosalie going off on a tirade about living in Forks.

It seemed like Mina wasn't the only one having a very bad day.

"I hate this place." Rosalie darkly commented to Emmett as Mina walked into the garage, pausing briefly to offer up a smile that Mina forced herself to return. She was going to have to pull herself together as she couldn't be miserable forever as that was Edward's job.

"How can you hate this place Rose? Sure it's not as big as other places we've lived Rose but we get to be somewhat normal and that's the whole point, right? That's the appeal of the lifestyle we live. We can pretend to be normal or as normal as vampires can be in a town like Forks! Besides we do normal way better than any of those humans do it and you know it Rose." Mina sarcastically quipped, forcing a smile on her face as she needed her family to think that everything was fine.

That she could handle herself and wouldn't need them to babysit her like she was a child despite the fact that she knew that would never happen. Regardless Mina smiled as she opened her car door and placed her backpack on the passenger seat, before turning to her sister. Mina hoped that her statement about being normal worked on her sister and brightened up Rosalie's mood given that she knew the one thing Rose wanted more than anything was to be normal.

She wanted to be human again.

"I guess your right Mina." Rosalie replied with a small smirk.

"I always am!" Mina retorted in a challenging manner as she attempted to lift both hers and Rosalie's mood.

"Can't believe that we seriously have to go along in that thing Mina." Emmett commented, referring to Mina's car; her old school volkswagen buggy which he seemed to have a big problem with which made Mina love her car even more.

Her siblings loved to drive fast and expensive cars but Mina didn't see the appeal as she knew she could outrun whatever car they had. Plus her family's taste in cars tended to draw more unwanted attention to them and it was already hard enough being vampires living in close proximity to humans every day without Mina making things harder.

"Well you better believe it Emmett because you know that in a town like this, we can't draw attention to ourselves with expensive cars. Even my little bug is going to stand out but not as much as the other cars, so the bug is in and the Mercedes' are out, well for me at least..." Mina replied feeling marginally better thanks to Emmett albeit at the expense of an insult towards her car.

But Mina knew not to take it personally. He was just trying to lighten the mood as they all knew that it was going to be an arduous day for Mina without worrying about Alice and Edward keeping a close eye on her and scrutinising her every move. So having Emmett tease her in a playful manner made Mina feel just a tad bit better.

"Do what you gotta do Mina, but don't expect me to ride with you."