Hello everyone! I'm Kate, 14, going into 9th grade, and am obsessed with Darkest Powers. Just as I promised, I'm writing another story to compensate for ending my other one. For anyone who didn't read my other story, hi again. Don't go read my other story unless you have already. It sucked really badly and I'm going to try to make up for it's suckiness in this story. I'll attempt to cut down on chapter sizes because those were out of line. And I'll definitely keep to the plot in this one, which will actually have a plot unlike my other one. There will be a few characters from the other one that show up in this story but they'll all be reintroduced and change a little so don't feel like you need to go read more about them in The Reckoning My Way PLEASE! Okay I'll get to the story now. It might get boring but please just keep reading, every story has its boring parts! I'm sorry if you all think this story sucks, and go ahead and say that in a review or PM and tell me how I could make it less suckish. All the chapter names will be quotes from the chapter, so there will be a couple weird ones. I apologize in advance for the many grammar/spelling errors I will make throughout this story and anything that might seem out of character, which will probably be a lot of things. And I do not own Darkest Powers.

Chloe's POV

I was jolted awake as the van hit a pothole. Looking around, I saw everyone looking pretty much the same as they had the entire 5 hours we'd been driving. Tori and Simon, who were sitting in the middle row, both had their faces plastered against their windows, sleeping and snoring softly. Kit and Aunt Lauren were still having whispered conversations up front, with Kit driving. And Derek was still next to me, looking out the window while pretending not to listen to what Kit and Aunt Lauren were saying. After a few seconds, he noticed I was awake and turned to me, giving me a tired half smile.

"Hey," he whispered, giving my hand a small squeeze.

"Hey," I whispered back, squeezing his hand as well. That was pretty much as affectionate as we ever got around my aunt, who still didn't really like us being together. And if it weren't for the fact that it was three a.m. and pitch black, she would probably be glaring at us through the rearview mirror.

It had only been a week since the infamous Edison Group lab showdown and all we been doing so far is drive from motel to motel, and not even the good ones like Best Westerns. We'd been keeping to Kit's lie-low plan and hadn't left the motels except for one grocery store stop (where we loaded up on everything non perishable that traveled well) and a trip to Wal-Mart for clothes, and our road trips from town to town. Now we were on the final leg of our journey, heading to a supposed safe house that Kit knew of. And I say supposed because we all know how safe our last one was. We were going to spend a few weeks there while resting up and making plans before we start calling or visiting any of the other subjects (another part of Kit's lie-low plan) (See there is a plot coming!). The "safe house" was in Ohio, about 30 miles outside Toledo, and owned by some of Kit's supposed friends, that were not part of the group Andrew, Margret, and all those other people were.

"How much longer?" I asked Derek.

"Soon, we just passed Sandusky which was a couple miles away on the map."

"Well wake me when we get there," I said, too tired to stay up another few minutes. I leaned my head against Derek's shoulder and tried to fall asleep.

But of course, right before I actually fell asleep, Kit loudly said, "Kids, wake up. We're pulling in the driveway now." Growling, I rubbed my eyes and opened them, seeing Tori and Simon doing roughly the same thing. I groaned and raised my head off of Derek's shoulder.

"Who'd you say lives here Dad?" Simon asked while he stretched.

"Well there's a bunch of people who live here on and off but the family who owns the house lives here year round. Those are the Fords. You used to know the oldest kid, James, who's a year or two older than you, from when Frank and I would bring the kids to the lab."

"Well yeah I definitely remember him," Simon said sarcastically. We sat in silence for a couple more minutes before we finally pulled up to the house. From what I could see, the house was probably a little bigger than average, except with a third floor, with a ton of pretty much open space around it, surrounded by pretty thick forest. A couple hundred yards away, I could see the glint of the moon on water, which I assumed to be Lake Erie.

"Well at least it's not old and creepy like the last one," Tori said.

"Always the optimistic one aren't you Tori?" I said. She glared at me before turning back to the window. Kit pulled up right next in front of the front door and unlocked the car, making the blinding lights turn on. Turning back to look at us, he said, "Okay I know you're all tired so I'll make this quick. Frank said that the whole third floor is bedrooms and as long as the door doesn't have a sign on it, you can all claim your own. If you see any people before introductions, just be nice. So just take your bags up and be quiet, we don't want any more cranky people walking around."

"Thanks Dad," Derek mumbled before getting up and running over Simon to get to the door. He always hated the car rides and the extra long one must have been really hard on him. He was already unloading our barely filled backpacks before Kit had even turned off the car. The rest of us jumped out after him and grabbed our bags, besides me anyway, Derek insisted that he carry mine.

We split up once we got inside, Aunt Lauren and Kit heading in one way to go look for Frank, the guy who owned the house and who said he would be up when we got here, and the rest of us straight up two flights heading for a bed. The stairs ended in the middle of a hallway that went ten feet or so before turning into two more hallways, one on each end.

"Night people," Tori said, quickly hurrying down to the left hallway. With a grunt and a wave, Simon followed her, leaving me and Derek alone. He looked down at me.

"To the right?"

"Sure." I replied tiredly, letting him lead me down the hall. The first few doors had signs with names I was too tired to read on them, but we found some that were right across the hall from each other. I walked into the one on the right and immediately fell face first onto the bed. I heard the thump of Derek putting my backpack down and flipped over do I could look at him. Being on the run with my disapproving aunt hadn't left us much alone time, probably only 20 minutes or so in the past week, which had really annoyed me. Hopefully being in an actual house would give us some privacy and I was planning on taking advantage of every time we got some.

Starting now.

I got off of the bed and walked over to the door, shutting it. Then, I walked the five steps to Derek and instantly wrapped my arms around his neck. Understanding what I was doing, he dropped his backpack and then put his arms around me, pulling me close.

"I like this house already," he murmured before pressing his lips against mine. I kissed him back instantly and after one glorious minute, He pulled away saying, "Dad and your aunt are coming up."

"Damn, can we ever catch a break?" I whined, dropping my head onto his chest.

"I know, it sucks," he said, kissing the top of my head. "I got to go before they come looking for one of us."

"Yeah that would be ugly," I said looking up at him. "Just wake me up when you get up."

"Sure but you'll be waking me, I plan on sleeping in," he said, yawning to prove his point.

"Fine, now get out of here," I said, giving him one last kiss.

"Night," he said, smiling, before grabbing his bag and leaving. Uhg, I have got to get that boy alone.

Sighing, I walked over to my bag and pulled out a pair of sweats and tank top, my current makeshift pajamas. After changing, I checked out my room. It was about the size of any of our motel rooms, with a slightly bigger bathroom, and a closet. There were two dressers, an empty bookshelf, A desk with a chair, the bed (which looked like a queen), and a bedside table which had a digital clock and lamp on it. There were two windows in the wall opposite the door but it was too dark to see out of them. All in all a pretty boring room, but still nice. A knock on the door made me jump. Please be Derek, please be Derek.

"Chloe?" my aunt's voice asked. Damn.

"Yeah?" I asked, annoyed.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh… Yeah. Just tired."

"Okay you go ahead and sleep then. Where's Derek?" Of course.

"Across the hall but I'm sure he's 'fine.' Good night."

"Good night sweetheart. I love you."

"Love you too, night." I heard the creaking of the floor under her feet as she retreated down the hall. Probably to the next room down to make sure Derek and I stay apart. Mentally groaning, I turned off the light and slipped under the covers, falling asleep almost instantly.

I woke up to, well nothing. Late morning light shown through the window as I flipped over to check the time. 12:22. Derek wasn't kidding about sleeping in. I got up and grabbed some of the hotel shampoo and soap I had stolen and took a shower. I then got dressed and went to wake up Derek. I knocked on his door and after two tries, heard him say, "Yeah?"

"It's me."

"Come in." I did and found him just getting out of his bed, dressed in only boxers of course. "Hey," he said grinning sleepily before grabbing a pair of jeans and pulling them up. Suddenly, he straightened up and sniffed the air. "Is that bacon?"

"No idea, you're the only one with superhuman senses."

"Actually no, I smelled at least two other werewolves on the way up."

"Well that's nice, you'll get to talk about stuff with them. You taking a shower, 'cause I'm really hungry."

"Took one last night," he said, pulling on a white t-shirt, that wasn't baggy. When we went clothes shopping he made the mistake of not participating and went to grab some snacks, leaving Tori the perfect chance to annoy him. He was pissed but quit complaining after a while, knowing it was useless. I for one never complained once, the shirts showed off his gorgeous muscles that I, and Tori, although she only admitted it once, found very attractive. "Ready?"

"Yup," I said, happily taking his hand and heading towards the stairs. With it now being light, I could see how nice the house was. It was on the fancier side but had nothing that was terribly breakable, which kind of scared me. I couldn't see any of the second floor other than a large room with some couches and a TV, although I could hear a bunch of noises that sounded like a Call of Duty video game coming from somewhere. The first floor was just huge, with a bunch of rooms. On our way to the kitchen, Derek following the smell of bacon, we passed through three different sitting rooms, only one of which had a TV, a room with a bunch of computers, and a dining room. Then we came into the gigantic kitchen, which had pretty much every major appliance in sterling silver, an island with stools around it, a pretty big table off to the side, and an open pantry across from the table that looked like it held half the grocery store.

There four people in the room, a blond woman who looked 45ish at the stove, cooking the bacon Derek had smelled, Kit, who was sitting at the table talking to a guy who also looked 45ish that had longish dark brown hair with grey sideburns, and a blonde guy my age who was sitting at the island eating peanut butter straight out of the jar. Yeah weird.

The blonde guy looked up and saw us, then said, "Oi, people are here!" in an amazing British accent (former readers know who it is?). Everyone turned to look at us, which kind of creeped me out.

"Hey kids," Kit said from the table. "Tori's already up and she was outside the last time I saw her. So is Lauren, although I'm not sure where she went. Simon's still sleeping and we'll do introductions once he's up. This is Frank," motioning towards the guy he was talking to. "Claire," the woman at the stove. "And Charlie," the peanut butter guy. "And these are Chloe and Derek."

"Hi," I said, waving awkwardly. Derek of course said nothing.

"Go ahead and get some food guys," Claire said, pointing towards a counter that was piled high with it.

"Thanks," I said, pulling Derek to the counter with me. I filled up one plate, Derek got three. I was trying to find a way to avoid these people so I said, "Let's bring some up to Simon, he's slept long enough."

"Sure," Derek said, giving me a grateful look, saying that he wanted to be here just as much as I did. We filled up another plate for him, then accepting a tray Claire gave us, went upstairs.

"Okay what was with that guy eating peanut butter?" I asked when I thought we were out of earshot.

"I have no idea," Derek said, sniffing the air, trying to find out what room was Simon's I guess. "But he was weird. And the guy who was talking to my dad was a werewolf."

"Well that's cool, you can learn stuff from him. Like he could coach you through the Change-"

"I don't need any coaching as long as you're with me," he said quickly. Awww! I couldn't resist, I went up on my tip toes and kissed him quickly. He smiled before opening a door. Sure enough, there was Simon, sprawled across the bed on his stomach and snoring. Seeing that he was shirtless, I backed out of the room saying, "I'll be back in a minute so he can get dressed." Derek nodded and went to go wake him up while I walked down the hall.

In this hall there four doors with signs on them, opposed to the two in mine and Derek's. One said Claire and Frank, a second Miles, the third Julie, and the last was Casey. The first two were towards the front of the hallway, the other two almost at the end, right across the hall from each other. I check all the un-signed rooms for Tori's stuff and found it in a room diagonal to Simon's, guess she still didn't want to be left entirely alone. I after finding her stuff, I went back to Simon's room.

"Hey Chloe," Simon said, now awake and fully dressed. "Thanks for breakfast."

"Thanks for the excuse to leave, it was awkward down there," I said, grabbing my plate and digging in. "And we're doing intros as soon as you come down."

"Oh yay," he said through a mouthful of pancakes.

"Well we heard video games on the way down if that makes you feel better," Derek said, already done with one of his plates.

"You know, it actually does. I haven't played a video game in months," he said, sounding a little depressed.

"Aww, poor you," I said sarcastically. We spent the rest of breakfast talking about random things before we finally had to go down. When we got to the kitchen, only Claire was still there.

"You must be Simon," she said from the sink where she was washing dishes. "I'm Claire. If you guys would put those in the dishwasher, it would be a big help. As soon as I'm done with these we'll introduce you to everyone."

"I'll help then," Simon said, already rolling up his sleeves, always the polite one.

"He can't even pre-rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, how the hell is he supposed to wash them?" Derek muttered in my ear. I laughed.

"Well great Simon, now you make us look rude," I said. "I'd help too but there's not really any room."

"I understand," Claire said. "Can you guys head upstairs then? We're doing intros in the big room with a bunch of couches on the second floor. Once Simon and I are done with these, I'll call everyone to go up there."

"Sure," I said, heading back to the stairs with Derek behind me. We found the same room that we could see from the stairs earlier and sat on one of the couches.

"How much you want to bet that Simon and Claire are best friends by the time they come up?" Derek asked.

"Nothin', I know they will be. Simon's too likable."

"That's for sure," he said, sliding his arm around me. Then, glancing at the TV, he said, "I wonder if this place has good TV."

"You wonder? After all the other fancy things you've seen here, you still wonder if they have good TV? I guess you're not that big of a genius after all."

"Now there's no need to be a smart ass," he said, reaching for a remote that was sitting on the arm of the couch. He turned on the TV and brought up the guide. Then, holding the remote out to me, he said, "You want to pick?"

"I'm good, just please don't turn on some army documentary."

"Was not planning on it." He scrolled through probably over a hundred channels before settling on Talladega Nights, which had barely started. Texas Ranger had just said "Chip I'm all jacked up on Mountain Dew!" when Claire's voice suddenly sounded through the house. "Okay everyone, get upstairs for intros. Less than two minutes or there will be trouble."

"Well this should be fun," Derek said.

"I agree." Right then, Simon came up with Claire, both of them laughing. "We were right."

"Hi guys," Simon said, waving and smiling. "Oooh, Talladega Nights." He jumped over the back of the couch, which surprisingly did not get a disapproving look from Claire, and sat down next to Derek. 20 seconds later, there was the sound of someone running up the stairs and then a guy with a girl on his back came running in.

"Well that was fun!" the girl said, jumping off the guy's back. From the distance she was away, I could see that she had dark brown hair and was about 5" 7' while the guy was probably 6" 2' and had dark blonde hair that was almost brown. "Thanks Jimmy!"

"Quit calling me that," the guy, whose name was apparently not Jimmy, said. The girl turned towards the TV, where Ricky had just won the once race backwards, and screamed.

"Oh my God this is on? Claire, can intros wait until the commercial?"

"Nope."

"Aw come on! And I even missed T.R.'s lumpy butt quote! Damn it!"

"Calm down babe," the guy said. "Now I got to go get Charlie, be back in a second." He leaned down to kiss her before running back out of the room and down the stairs. The girl sighed loudly before sitting down on the couch, watching the movie with a pissed-off look. Another girl came in, this one with light blonde hair and a little shorter than the last one, and sat down next to the first. Then Kit and Frank came in and sat over by Claire.

"Weeee, weee, weee wee weeeeeeee! (if you've seen the little piggy Geico commercial that's what it supposed to sound like)," came from the stairs and a couple seconds later, the guy from earlier came running in with the Charlie guy, who was still making the "wee wee wee" noises, on his back. Jumping down, he said, "Again!"

"Hell no, you're too fricken' annoying," the guy said, walking over to sit next to the girl he had on his back earlier.

"You're mean!" Charlie yelled, acting like a little kid as he dropped onto a couch and crossed his arms. Tori came in then with an Asian guy with a goatee who looked 30 and Aunt Lauren. She walked over and sat down next to me.

"Where have you been?" I asked her.

"Checking out the house and the yard, which is awesome," she said.

"Okay guys," Claire said, muting the TV.

"Aw come on!" the one girl who liked the movie said. "A good line was just about to come up!"

"We have this on DVD," Claire said. "Watch it later. Anyway, let's start introductions. Casey, why don't you start since you just want to watch the movie anyway. You know the drill."

"Uhg fine but it's no good without sound anyway," the movie girl, who was apparently Casey, said and stood up. "Casey, shaman, 15, like roller coasters, movies, Will Ferrell, books, and stupid YouTube videos." She sat back down, still pissed about not hearing the movie, and the guy who was giving her and Charlie piggyback rides stood up.

"Hello! I'm James, am 17, and a werewolf. I like TV, annoying people, acting idiotically, and eating. And since Casey's too pissed to mention it, she's my girlfriend." He sat again and the other girl stood up.

"I'm Julie and am a 15 year old witch. I enjoy swimming, reading, animated movies, acting, and being really random. James' sister." Charlie stood up.

"Okay, I'm Charlie, 16, and a sorcerer. I like blowing things up, making things fly into people, acting half my age, music, and stupid American shows." He still had that awesome accent. The Asian guy stood up.

"Miles, am 32, and a necromancer. I like talking to dead people, play with weapons, fish tacos, and watching cheesy movies." Claire stood up then.

"I'm Claire, am 44, and a fire half demon. I like cooking, bad reality TV, and sappy romance stories. And I'm James and Julie's mom and Frank's wife." Frank stood up next.

"I'm Frank, 46, werewolf. I like pizza, being sarcastic, classical books, and the Discovery Channel. James and Julie's dad and Claire's husband." Frank sat down and that was the end of the new people. Kit stood up.

"So I'm Kit, 47, and a sorcerer. I like war movies, watching baseball, and Coke. I'm Simon and Derek's dad." At the end he hesitated, like he wanted to add Tori. He still hadn't told her he was her dad, although I'm not even sure he was planning on it. If a week goes by and he hasn't told her, I'll say something, I told myself. Aunt Lauren went.

"I'm Lauren, am 38, and a human. I like traveling, shopping, and playing card games and I'm Chloe's aunt." Next was Simon.

"Hi, I'm Simon, 15, and a sorry excuse for a sorcerer. I like drawing, comic books, basketball, and action movies." Then it was Derek's turn.

"Be nice," I whispered as he got up, knowing he would hear me.

"Derek, 16, and a werewolf. I like eating, sleeping, and usually avoiding conversations." He sat back down and I glared at him for his unfriendly intro before standing up myself.

"I'm Chloe and am a 15 year old necromancer with abnormally strong powers, so don't get too freaked out if you see some zombie rabbit running around or something." That earned a freaked out look from everyone new, except for Miles who looked intrigued, and a shudder from Tori. "I like pretty much all movies, listening to music, reality shows, and the internet. And I'm Derek's girlfriend." I sat down again and then the only one left was Tori.

"I'm Tori, 16, and a really powerful witch, so you better not piss me off. I like computers, shopping, cleaning, and old books." She sat down and Casey immediately shouted, "Okay un-mute it! Un-mute it! The George Bush and Cheerios thing is gonna come up!"

"Okay Case," Claire said, taking the TV off mute. A second after she pressed the button, the quote that Casey was talking about came up. She knew this movie well and recited the whole next minute, with the perfect Girard accent.

"Well I got to go do some laundry," Claire said, getting up. Aunt Lauren offered to help and they left the room. After a few minutes, Kit and Frank left, saying something about making plans, yay. Then the commercial break started and Casey turned to us.

"Okay, so when new people come here," she started. "We give them a chance to get used to all our weirdness in just a couple of hours. Otherwise you'll just be thinking 'What the hell is wrong with them' for weeks before you get used to us. It actually works pretty well, just ask Charlie. You guys up for it?"

"Sure," Simon said immediately. "Got nothing better to do."

"I guess," Tori said. "Like Simon said, nothing else to do."

"Actually there's a ton," Julie said. "You just haven't seen the house yet, but we'll give you guys a tour." I looked up at Derek.

"I don't care," he said, shrugging.

"Then we'll go too," I said.

"Cool!" Casey said, jumping off the couch.

"Miles you coming with?" James asked. "You're as much of a freak as any of us."

"Oh thank you James," Miles said. "I feel so loved and included. But yes I will come."

"Then let the weirdness initiation begin!"

So like? Love it? Hate its guts? Think it sucked or was super boring? Please tell me your honest opinion in a review or PM! PLEASE! So any former readers of my other story think this one is better. It's at least shorter right, and that's a really good thing. I'll try to keep my chapters less than 5,000 words, that way it won't take so long to update and you guys don't have to sit at your computer reading a super long 9,000 word chapter that's really boring. Almost all my characters names are from Lost, which I am a ginormus fan of, and they're all supposed to look like that character as well, so if you want a visual, go look them up (Julie's name is actually Juliet), except Casey who is based off of me. I'm really sorry that Kit and Lauren liked really random things in their introductions but we don't know them too well so I just put down some stuff, which can be changed if anyone gives me some good suggestions. Okay for those of you who read The Reckoning My Way, Julie in this one is actually Charlotte from the last one, I just needed a J name from Lost and Juliet is the only one for a girl I could think of so I stole her name. I really like Talladega Nights, so there will probably be a couple times it's mentioned. On a really random note, anyone seen Zombieland? I just watched it and loved it. Anyway, please, please, please, please review! Thanks a ton for reading! I'll try to update soon!