CHAPTER 3

Once up the stairs we made a right into an open room. There was a fireplace, and couches, like any normal person's home but more luxurious.

I had almost expected coffins.

The vampires, the Cullen's, were all gathered together, coupled up except for one. A huge mass of a man, hunched over in a corner, the absolute picture of misery. Unlike the others, he didn't look up when I came in.

"Jasper, she'll be fine now. You can stop." on of the coupled off men said, the one with the bronze hair.

"I don't think that's the best idea, Edward." Jasper said, glancing at me.

"She knows she's outnumbered, she won't try anything." he reassured his worries. A second later I gasped in a breath, smiling as Jasper let go of his hold over my emotions. It was such a beautiful feeling, to feel what I wanted to feel without restraint. It was like a thousand pound boulder had been sitting on my chest, and I was trapped in my own body, unable to express myself.

"I'm so sorry about that," I looked at the two vampires closest to me. It was the man who had apologized.

A blond man, young, probably turned while he was in his mid to late twenties. He had neatly combed blond hair, and looked just as much as a model as any other vampire. Tilting my head, he reminded me of the greek god zeus. He was tall, 6'2 at the most the woman. His arm around was around the waist of a woman, her face aged just a little more than his. Probably turned in her late twenties early thirties, but she was no less beautiful, in fact her age seemed to enhance her beauty.

She was shorter than him and taller than me, with billowing caramel blonde hair. She was slender and rounded, curvy. She had these, slender eyebrows and a look of pure compassion, expressed in every smile and blink of her warm eyes.

More than anyone in the room, she stunned me the most.

Before getting to the other couple, I studied the giant next. Was this who Alice had been talking about, the man my mom left behind. Her true love. Emmett. He had dark curly hair, and I could see the hint of little dimples that I was sure would be enhanced if he was smiling like the others. I had never seen someone so large and yet looked so much like a child, lost, just hovering not knowing what to do, where to go. I felt bad for him.
"Renesmee?" I turned my head with a snap, as Bella's voice rang out. She had been sitting on one of the sofa's with a bronze haired man. She was standing now, looking as nervous as a cat on hot bricks.

She was just as beautiful as the rest of them. She was the most comfortably dressed of them all. A cashmere sweater, pair of designer jeans and valentino booties. She had long brown hair with a widow's peak, a thin nose and angular face, her lips were a little too full for the shape of her face, but it worked for her. The worst part is that I could see my reflection in bits of her features, her cheekbones, her eyebrows, even forehead.

In the man next to her I saw my chin, my nose, my ears, my natural reddish brown hair. The fact that I noticed these things had me choking, my breath hiccuping in my throat. I felt tears prick at my eyes with the realization, the dots connecting. This wasn't right, this wasn't true. I knew who my mom was, this woman wasn't her. I didn't want to believe these people were my parents. Sniffing, my tears finally fell, rolling down my cheeks in hot and heavy streams, my face flushing into an ugly expression.

Bella, misinterpreting my reaction, ran to me before Edward or Jasper could explain to her what I was really feeling. That these tears were not happy ones, I was not relieved to be here to see her or any of them. She stopped in front of me, drinking in my face, her hands hovering, afraid to touch me.

"You're so beautiful," I tried not to look at her, scooting back from her. I didn't want her near me.

"Do you remember me at all?" I wanted to rip my hearing aids out, hearing her even when I wasn't seeing her lips. My aids were the top of the line, the most advanced in centuries, allowing the deaf to hear, even if it sounded only like a whisper. It was something, it was words, and not just noise. It was supposed to be a gift but all it felt like was a nightmare right now. I hated it.

I cried harder and shook my head, stepping back from her. Of course I didn't remember her and I didn't want to. I didn't care if it was true, that my mom wasn't my biological mom, I still wanted to live with her. I loved her and she loved me and that's all we have ever needed.

"Oh, Renesmee." I caught the words before she wrapped her arms around me, speaking right into my ear. That wasn't my name.

"My nudger, my baby, you're home." but I wasn't home, I was very, very far from it in fact.

I couldn't take it and pushed her off of me as hard as I could, watching her fly back across the room, crashing into one of the sofa's. She was startled and hurt. Not physically hurt, but emotionally at my rejection. Edward, was by her side in a whoosh, his arms around her, comforting her. They didn't seem to be surprised by my strength.

"She's going to need time, Bella, you've just overwhelmed her is all." he told her, kissing her forehead and pushing some of her hair back from her face lovingly as she clung to him.

I glared at him. That was not it at all, he was lying to her to spare her feelings.

"I'm sorry, Renesmee, you just don't know how long I've been waiting for this moment." said Bella, looking ready to cry. That is if vampires could cry.

"Tell her to stop calling me that awful name. My name is Vanessa" I directed my thoughts towards my so called dad, sneering at him through my tears and then added. "No wonder my mom took me; a name like that is pure child abuse."

"You have to understand, that name reminds us of the worst time in our existence," Edward said his face a burning expression, but there was something lacking there, it wasn't the same intensity at Bella's.

"I don't care." I signed and thought at the same time, my thoughts chilling. "that's my name, and it's the only one I will ever go by."

"Edward, what is she saying." Bella looked up at him, looking between us. What, so everyone else here could commune in sign language, but not her. How convenient for her to not know my real thoughts.

"She asks that she be called 'Vanessa,'" he told her. Her eyes went wide and stayed on me, hurt clear in her eyes, as if asking such a thing had somehow insulted her.

"I don't think I can do that-" she cut off, closing her eyes tight.

"It would be best to try, Bella, for the sake of your relationship. It's going to be very difficult for her, this may make it easier for her." said the older blonde, stepping forward from his partner.
"Hello, Vanessa. My name is Carlisle," he signed, each one perfect and his gestures downpat. he looked to the woman next to him, the one that had me stunned."This is Esme, my wife."

"I'm your paternalgrandfather, and Emse is your grandmother." he explained, his hand open as he touched his thumb to his forehead and made two small arches. The sign for grandfather. He did the same for grandmother, accept he touched his thumb to his chin.

"It's nice to meet you." Esme stepped up next to him and signed, her mouth forming the words out loud as well.

I did my best to hide my pleasure that they both knew ASL, it made things much easier, I wouldn't have to share my gift just to communicate. These people didn't deserve that, to be able to see that much of me.

"That a shame, Alice said your gift is very beautiful." Edward said, disappointed.

I stared at him unimpressed by his mind reading.

"I know this is hard, Vanessa," this time it was his turn to have some awkward moment with me, and he smirked a little at the snide comment in my head. "But we're all going to get through this as a family."

"I already have a family. My mom." I glared at him, at all of them. "I want to be with her."

"You can't. You have to understand that what she did, taking you, was incredibly wrong. You are our daughter." he told her, his face going into a harder, colder expression at the mention of my mom.

"I don't care." I told him, so incredibly pissed off.

"She loves me, and I love her." I told them, feeling another hot wave of emotion and tears rip through me. "How could that be wrong?"
None of them had an answer.

"She's not the only one," he finally said, Bella still hanging back looking to Carlisle for interpretation. "like it or not, I am your father and Bella is your mother, and we love you just as much as Rosalie. We just never got the chance to show you."

"She's not a bad person." I cried, pressing my lips together as I signed. I had to defend my mom, I wouldn't let them make her out to be anything but the amazing person she was. If she took me from them, then she had a good reason for it.

"So you believe us, that we're your parents?" he followed, his eyes holding some hope in them, more than they had before.

"It's hard not to now that I have met you but knowing the truth isn't the same as accepting it." I said, showing him his own face and Bella's of the features we shared, cutting them out and piecing them together to make my face. "And don't think I'm going to start calling you mom or dad now either.. "

"We don't expect you too." he gave me a kind and understanding smile. I wanted to smack him.

"It's been a long day. Or you tired or….hungry, at all?" Esme asked, the question in the word 'hungry' easy to read.

"You can just ask?" I smiled, amused, wiping at my very wet face. I was such an ugly cryer. Damn I shouldn't be smiling, this was not a time to be smiling.

"What do I eat?" I clarified for her. It didn't bother me, after all she was a vampire, so it wasn't exactly an insensitive question considering what we were.

"Well, yes." she made a sheepish expression.
"I eat both regular food and blood." I shrugged. I much preferred regular food, but once a month I got an insatiable craving for blood, human or animal, it didn't matter, though human had a better flavor to it. Richer.

"You drink human blood?!" Edward spoke loudly, appalled and horrified by this new information about me.

I shrugged. It wasn't often, in fact it was very rare as it was something my mom frowned on, believing that we were both better to have more control over our urges and instincts then to feed off of humans. That it distances us from our own humanity and from the mundane life we worked so hard to keep.

Human blood tasted better, but like fatty, fast food in comparison to the blander, healthier choice of animal blood. Animal blood sustained us, but it always left you wanting a little more afterwards. Just like when you ate a salad, but you really wanted a cheeseburger.

Since I was too little too hunt, my mom had bottle fed me stolen blood from blood banks and hospitals. She did what she had to to feed me at the time.

Once I was old enough to hunt, she taught me how. To keep me interested, she made it like a game, a competition between us. I loved to see who was faster, who would catch the prey first. But I slipped one day, I was in town, it was cloudy and a little boy had fallen and scraped his knee. Drawn to the blood, all my senses making my body tingle with a ferocious hunger, I had run to him. I had bent down, examined his leg and after giving him my sweetest smile licked the blood from his knee's. It was then that I had bit him just above the scrape on his thigh, my mother pulling me off of him just as my teeth broke the skin.

She apologized to the boy and to his parents, taking notice that other than a little pain he wasn't burning, he wasn't writhing in agony like those that were bitten and infected with vampire venom. It was then that my mother realized I had no venom, that I could bite without turning or killing anyone with the right amount of restraint.

She had told me it was wrong, that I wasn't to do it again, but it did. We put it on the human blood that I had to drink as a baby, gave me a taste for it. Animal blood just wasn't enough. One day my throat had burned and my stomach grumbled. Unable to take seeing me in such pain, she took me into the city and we hunted like we always did, but this time the prey was another species. We found someone, she helped me lure them to a private, closed off area and I fed. The guy was still alive after, and my mom had blinded him so he couldn't see my face.

It only happened two more times and only when I was desperate, when my body wouldn't accept anything else. Then I found human food, and found that it could give me the same satisfaction and fulfillment as human blood.

My mom was relieved when we made that discovery. She would always do what she had to for me, to make sure I was healthy and happy, but it was clear that she rather I didn't have to drink from humans. She worried about how it would affect my mindset and moral compass.

"Don't look at me like that." I told him when I noticed the look Edward was giving me, my hands moving in frantic, angry motions as I signed. "I don't have venom, I can't turn anyone if I bite them, and I've never drained anyone dry. I don't hurt people!"

All of them looked trouble after my announcement, almost wary of me.

"We never hurt humans, it's a personal oath all of the members in our family took." Carlisle told me. "We are strictly vegetarian."

I rolled my eyes. They acted like I had committed some terrible crime. It's not that I didn't appreciate human life, I did, I admired it greatly. It was so beautiful and intricate, a web of entwined interactions and experiences. I would never want to take that away from someone. Never want to steal away their normalcy, their life and the ambitions they worked towards. It was all so incredible.
Bella, who couldn't read my mind and didn't know sign language looked again to Edward for explanation as to the conversation. She herself, didn't seem nearly as concerned with this news.

"Edward, we gave her human blood when I was pregnant, you can't blame her for having a taste for it when we are the ones who gave her that first taste." she touched his shoulder, keeping his attention, her amber eyes seeming to mesmerize him. "You can't be too hard on her."

I wasn't sure if she really believed it wasn't as dire a thing as the others thought, or she was just trying to get me too like her. I tried not to appreciate the empathy and turn of attention from me. But as I felt my stomach roll, most likely making a terribly loud sound, the attention was once more on me and suddenly two other people had entered the room.

"And that is our cue, leave it to witches to cook up something amazing." I jumped a good few feet as two people came up from behind me on either side, putting me on defense at the sudden surprise of their arrival.

They were both black, my age, one girl and one boy with striking hazel eyes and sharp features. They had to be siblings, maybe ever twins. The girl was wearing a green and bronze dress that looked like it came from a medieval time, and thigh high brown leather boots. Her long hair was silver, tied in a hundred thin, tight braids. Her septum was pierced, a little gold ring above her lip. She was beautiful.

The boy was no less so, his dark hair a mess of fuzzy dreads. He had a very lucid expression, calm and almost...high. He smiled lazily at me. He was a little taller than the girl, more than a few inches as he leaned an arm on her shoulder. He was wearing a contrast blazer with a gray textured body and leather sleeves over a black top. He wore a white skirt over a pair of black, ripped skinny jeans. A unique look that belonged on a runway.
"I'm Deka and this is my brother Adisa." Deka, the girl introduced both herself and him. Her signing just as perfect as Carlisle's and Esme's but there was something about the way she moved her hands, foreign, like she knew ASL, but a different form of it. I had never seen that before.

"Now, let's get you something to eat. I have been dying to cook for someone other than this guy." she said, ending with a gesture toward Adisa, who I still assumed was her brother. He gave a dopey wave, his eyes still in that half lidded sleepy gaze.

Deka walked backwards in front of me and Adisa guided be from behind, his hands gentle on my shoulders as he nudged me to follow her. None of the others stopped them, which I took as a good sign that they trusted the two of them.

Unlike Alice, Deka had a more down to earth cheerfulness to her, not overly enthusiastic, keeping an aloof cool to her. She didn't annoy me like Alice did. And they were human, that's what surprised me the most, but underneath I smelt something different, something exoctic and, and...well I couldn't really explaining. It what I imagined magic might smell like. So what exactly were they. She had said witches. But was that just a figure of speech, or did she actually mean to say that she was a witch.

"Yes, we are witches, and no I can't read your mind. You're expression gave away what you were thinking. Though I am really good guesser." she smiled at me, her hazel eyes twinkling. And I meant actually twinkled, like a special effect in a movie.

"You live here too?" I asked her as we entered a kitchen, another living area right around the corner on the other side of a fireplace. Adisa lead me to the long island and pulled out a stool for me, smiling, his eyes a little clearer.

"Yes. We've been here for almost a year now." she told me, leaning her elbows on the island in front of her. "We lived in Los Angeles before."

"So what do you want to eat?" she asked me, changing the subject.

"I'm up for anything as long as I can help make it?" I told her with a shrug. Signing was hard once I actually started cooking.

Yeah, I also liked to cook. When we lived in Italy, my mom had gotten the best little house with the best kitchen she could find. She bought me top of the line cookery ware, pots and pans, and for two months she had hired a private chef to teach me how to cook. It had been a christmas present that year. It was the best. My mom couldn't eat any of it, but it made her happy to see me happy doing something that I found out I really loved to do.

When I grow up, if I ever grow past this point, I want to be a chef and to open my own restaurant.

"Alright. Then how about you take a look in the fridge, see if you can get an idea for what you might want?" Deka grinned wide, finishing her signing with a wave of her hand, beckoning me from my seat to join her on her side, waving over to the refrigerator.

When I get up she turns from the counter to face me, leaning back against it on her elbows as she watches me. Adisa in on her other side, taking out pots and pans, putting them in a line by size.

Sticking my head into the fridge, I search through the contents. The double door fridge and all the glory inside could easily belong in the kitchen of Master Chef. It had everything I could imagine in it, top grade produce and meat. I could only imagine what the spice cabinet looked like. I was in heaven.

Organizing and reviewing all the ingredients that was available I decided on Chicken Parmesan. I was in the mood for some cheesy, saucy goodness.

I made quick work of getting everything I needed out of the fridge, neatly organizing it next to the stove. Moving around each other, Deka helped me prepare the batter for the chicken while Adisa was trusted with the seasoning of the sauce. We turned on the oven to preheat and together when the batter was ready we dipped the chicken in, laying it out on a pan after and sliding it into the oven.

At some point music was put on, I could both hear some of it and feel the vibrations of the rhythm in the counter. Adisa had put it on really loud so I wouldn't have to strain to enjoy it. That's when I realized it.

"Adisa, or you deaf?" I asked him as politely as one could ask. He smiled and shook his head.

Deka tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention.

"He had laryngitis when we were kids, but unlike most people who regain their voice once the infection in gone, he never did. He can't speak." she explained. "He can sign, but he's very self conscious about it. He's never quite picked up on it that well. Most of the time he just writes stuff down."

"Ok," I said, and smiled at Adisa before we went back to focusing on the food. I wasn't going to make a big deal about it, I knew how it felt to have a lot of attention placed on a disability.

Somehow or another, all three of us ended up getting really into the song, our hips swaying, our arms up, heads bobbing and hair fluttering around our faces. Adisa was giving me a spin, the music so loud that even with my hearing aids I never heard the booming voice. I noticed that Adisa and Deka seemed to stiffen for just a second, enough that I frowned at them before they were taking turns twirling me around, our hips bumping as we let go. I was so grateful for what they were doing, trying to get me to relax and feel comfortable. For just a little while, as we cook and dance, I can forget the present situation and have a little fun again.

There was yelling then, loud enough I could feel and hear the booming mumur over the music. With the song still going I couldn't hear much.

"Brady saw you with a human in your car coming up here, where is she now? How many people are you going to endanger!" the man roared, something about the muffle of his voice sending a spark through me and I shuddered.

What was that?
I didn't hear much more but a murmur that I could not make out coming from the other room, though I was sure they were talking to one another, I could guess that much. I assumed the topic was me. It made me anxious, and I combed my hair back with my fingers and pushing it to the side, my palm sliding up and over my forehead, fingers slipping into my silky hair. It was a habit I've always seeme to have, my mom didn't like it for some reason though. She never said anything about it, but she always frowned when she saw me do it. I wonder if any of this had to do with it, maybe it was something that I got from Bella or Edward.

Who else was here? Was it another vampire, more witches like Deka and Adisa. I wanted to know what was going on, so i turned down the music just in time to hear the elated voice of a man.

"You found her?!" it was deep, and the tone made my bones ache in the strangest way, like my body was craving something I didn't know it needed. It was so weird.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner? Where is she?" the man to continue to raise his voice, relief and anger mixed in the same sentence. Heavy steps shuffled around the house, searching. Then they started towards the kitchen

"This really isn't the time, Jacob. It's been a long day, we just want her to eat and then take her to the cabin to get settled in and rest for the night." Edward said, following this Jacob person.

"You can see her tomorrow!" he promised, urging him to leave, almost sounding angry the other was even here.
"Screw that!" he tossed back, and then someone was rounding the corner into the kitchen, and that's when I first saw him.