How To Deal

Prologue: Burning

I felt the fire coursing through me like a blazing inferno. My arms and legs were finally free of this fiery prison, and I could feel my heart racing the fire towards its last beats. I knew I was dying. Slowly…. very slowly…. I was dying. There were knives of flame ripping through my chest, and pulling open my mouth to let the screams out. I knew I was going to hell. Anyone who died like this must be sent to burn in hell.

I felt like I was in a dream where all you want to do is make it stop. It was one of those dreams that you would wake up screaming from in the middle of the night. I'd screamed so loud, and so fiercely, I couldn't understand why I wasn't waking up.

After a while, though, I realized that this nightmare wouldn't stop. There was no waking up this time, and to me, there was no stopping it at all.

I had never thought of how I was going to die. But if I had, I wouldn't have pictured it this way. I was fourteen years old, and had been taken from my parents when I was four. My single-mother aunt had taken me then out of pity. She hadn't wanted me thrown into the system, but she didn't really want me herself. She was a good person, but had never loved me like she loved her own two children.

We lived in an eight hundred square foot two bedroom trailer. I shared a room with her daughter, and her son. They were both older than me, and treated me like I was just a burden. I only got hand-me-downs, and was lucky if I got a smile from any of them. I was small for my age, but I had never been fed right. I was fast, but not an athlete.

If there was one night that I had wished I could go back and do over again, it would be the night I had decided to go for a walk by myself, after dark. It seemed like ages ago since this blazing inferno had begun, but I knew it could've only been a few days.

That night…. That horrible, life changing night… I had left my mind behind me, and just walked. I should've known better. The trailer park we lived in was in a rough area, and I knew not to go out after dark.

I couldn't remember much after the initial rush of being grabbed by someone behind me. I had known within the minute that whatever was going to happen to me was going to be bad. We had been flying… going so fast I couldn't see the feet of the person beneath me, and from the position they held me in, I couldn't see their face either.

I don't remember what had happened after that. I had been slammed on the ground, and everything had gone black as my legs snapped beneath me.

I had woken up screaming, just like I was now, with my eyes wide open, looking for something, anything that could tell me where I was. All I could see around me was tall, tall grass, and a few trees surrounding me.

I had had the feeling throughout the whole process that someone was watching me, and that they were just out of my sight. I couldn't move a muscle, and I couldn't lift my head to try and see them. I could hear my screams echoing around me, and I wondered how anyone couldn't have heard them, wherever I was at.

I knew that there was someone next to me. I could feel their presence, and I could hear their screams. I couldn't see through the tall grass to where they were lying, but I knew that they were close.

I was burning. As my heart desperately clung to its last beats, I heard my breathing stop, and the world around me disappeared.

My eyes had closed, and when I opened them, everything around me came into focus. I turned my head to the side, and saw, though several yards away, a young boy staring right back at me.

At that moment, everything changed. Somewhere inside of me, I knew I should've been afraid, but I wasn't. There was something I saw in his eyes, although they were the color of crimson, that I immediately trusted.

"I'm Zach," he said very quietly.

I stared at him for a moment longer, wondering who he was, and why I trusted him so much. "Andrea," I said.

"You two!" A woman's voice called. I saw her emerge from the trees surrounding us. Someone had been there, just as I had expected. "On your feet!" she screeched in a horrible voice. "Do as I say, or pay the price," she said in a quieter tone, yet just a terrifying.

At that moment, the feeling of hatred entered my body for the first time. This woman wasn't good, and I hated her.

And so began my life in a world of hate, vengeance, war, and finally, love.

Zach and I had bonded immediately. We were both lost and confused in this new world, and every emotion we felt was magnified by a tenfold. Patrick and Mary- our creators- taught us only one rule; what they said, was what we did. If they told us to kill, we killed. If they told us to fight, we fought. If they told us to hate, we hated with a burning passion.

The months went by, and with every day came a new challenge, and a new game for Patrick and Mary to play with us. We weren't the only ones who had been newly created, and together, they created their own personal army of slaves. We killed off coven after coven, sweeping through town after town, making our mark on civilization. We took more and more territory, and Patrick and Mary did not believe in coexisting with other vampires. We made them powerful.

In this new world, we were killers. We were the murderers of people with families, and futures, and dreams, just like we had used to have. But there was no fighting off the thirst. That was, so we thought.

Zach and I had been planning our escape for a long time, almost as long as we had been together. The night we saw these new ones- the Cullen's- we knew our chance had come. We had seen them killing animals, and drinking their blood, just like we did with humans. Patrick and Mary never would have admitted it, but they were intimidated and a little scared by these ones that were so different from us. Zach and I did our best to blend in with the others as Patrick and Mary directed us to fight, and watched helplessly as the Cullens tried to make peace with them.

Patrick and Mary turned a blind eye, and ultimately lost their lives, while being responsible for the loss of over ten others. Patrick and Mary hadn't known that this would finally be the fight they lost, but we weren't trained, and were outnumbered by quite a few. There had been several others hiding, just out of sight.

This had been the first, and most critical, fight that Zach and I hadn't taken part in. After the dust had cleared and the bodies had been burned, Zach and I announced our presence to them.

They had been aggressive at first, thinking that we were members of Patrick and Mary's coven that they hadn't killed. As soon as they gave us a chance to explain though, our stories had come flooding out.

"We were both… made like this…" Zach had started. "About a year ago. Um… we… were not the first that Patrick and Mary… changed."

"They were…" I continued. "Well, I suppose you could say they were forming a group of followers. An army of sorts."

"They," said Zach. "Were seeking protection. From what I gathered… they were… nomadic. They were not new at their lifestyle, but quite tired of it. They felt constantly outran by other… covens… And they didn't like that."

"This was not the first time they have ordered us to fight," I said. "Several of us… were already killed off."

We were silent for a second. "So…" A short one with spiky black hair said. "Why didn't you fight this time?"

We both sighed at the same time. "Because we're tired of it!" Zach had told them. "We're tired of killing… humans… vampires… We don't want to live like that."

"You," I said. "You weren't killing like we were. Taking away innocent lives, ripping people's family's apart. You…"

Their leader it appeared, spoke up. "My name is Carlisle," he had said. "Perhaps I can explain." And so he told us about their life style. He explained how he had come about, and about how he had created this lifestyle of killing animals instead of people. He had paused at the end of his speech. "And…" he told us as we listened in shock. "If you're willing… we'd gladly take you in as family."

Zach and I had looked at each other, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. It had been a while since either of us had heard the word family. "Family?" I had repeated.

"Yes," He said. "See, we could take you in as 'foster children.' You could go to High School… even college. But… you must overcome the wanting of blood first. It's non-optional."

Our eyes had been wide as the prospect of being able to go back to a somewhat normal life sank into our brains. "Really?" I had asked.

"Really," Carlisle said with a smile.

"But…" Zach had contradicted. "Wouldn't we be… putting you out or something?"

A woman with caramel colored hair flashed her eyes at us. "Family is not something that put's you out." She told us.

"If you don't mind me asking," Zach had said after a minute. "How do all of you live together without drawing up strange questions?"

Carlisle smiled. "Well, actually, we don't all exactly live together. Carmen, Eleazor, Kate, Garrett, Tanya, and Andrew all live in Denali, Alaska." We found out later that Andrew had just recently married Tanya, and that this was one of the first times that the Cullen's had met him. "Our cover story," Carlisle said, pointing out seven others, "is that Esme and I adopted Emmett, Edward, and Alice when they were babies, or close to it." He pointed out the people he spoke of. "We also have another 'son' named Connor who was adopted as a teenager. Jasper and Rosalie are 'foster children', even though they've already turned 'eighteen'. They pretend to be twins."

I was smiling by that point, seeing how this could work out. "I suppose we should tell you," I started. "That we have a few… abilities… of our own." I gestured toward Zach with my head.

"I can see people's pasts," he told them confidently. "I can get the whole story if I touch them and the general picture if I'm in about a five mile radius of them."

"And I can see the good and bad in people, which helps me know if I can trust them. You are all very, very good," I told them quickly.

"I read minds," the one called Edward blurted out.

"And I see the future," Alice said blandly.

"I can control people's emotions," Jasper announced.

"I'm a mental shield," a girl with brown hair and a beautiful face casually commented. "And I'm Bella by the way."

"I show people my thoughts," A younger looking girl had said. I didn't know what it was about her… but she didn't seem like a normal vampire. I tried not to stare. "And my name is Nessie."

"I can inflict pain upon people," Kate had said in a casual voice.

"And I can tell you what other people's… abilities are," Eleazor announced.

"O…..k," I said with a nod. "I take it there are a few awkward moments in your house?"

"At least once every hour," the one called Emmett assured me.

Zach and I laughed. "Is that a yes then?" Carlisle had asked us. "Will you join us?"

"Yes," we both said, very definitely.

"Then there's something you should know," Carlisle said. And he told us about a girl named Julia, and how she was human, and how she was going to be turned into a vampire soon. Bella and Edward told us their story, and I listened in amazement as they told us that Bella had been human when they had gotten married, and they had had the girl called Nessie. She was half-human, half-vampire. The boy who wasn't here, Connor, had been with Julia at that time on their honeymoon. "So I think," Carlisle concluded. "That perhaps you should go live in Alaska with the Denali's for about a month, until Julia is changed. And that would give us time to spread the story that we are getting new 'foster children.'"

"That's fine with us," I had agreed immediately. "We just want to do whatever it takes to be like you."

And so the battle began.