bare with me. it's certainly been a while and the gods know my grammar sucks.
i own nothing

there's a reason the Grimm stories never made it out of paperbacks

I jolted awake in a cold sweat. I couldn't recollect the origin of my dream but my ragged breathing and feverish state told me it was far from pleasant. The only light of my bedroom came from a digital clock that flashed back 2 AM. I groaned and slammed back into my bed aware that I was not getting any more sleep.

I dragged myself out of bed and flicked on the lights as I rubbed the last bits of sleep from my eyes. The heavy black curtains hid my light from the outside world and I did not mind for the streets of Volterra were barren at this hour. There had to be someone doing something productive that I could distract them from, Caius was often working at this ungodly hour. I pulled on a dark blue sweater that could easily pass for black and a pair of jeans because there was no need for formal attire today.

With a pair of slippers on my feet I began to wander the halls of our castle. I knew that electricity ran through the entire structure but the torches lining the halls gave it such a morbid touch. It made me smile. With an extra spring in my step I made my way though the sinuous halls and found myself gravitating towards the study.

Sulpicia passed me and smiled flawlessly. I returned the gesture but as soon as she had passed me I felt a familiar jealous rage overcome me. I hate being half human. I'm not as pretty as anyone else, I slower, dumber, weaker, and it sucked! I'm just a glitch in this web of grace and perfection. I justified all of the above as reasons to hate Sulpicia but most of all I hated how she caught my father's eye.

I pushed open the heavy oak door light it was Styrofoam. Aro was at his desk with a thick red book open. I knew he was aware of my presence but he didn't even look up when I entered. I loved the study and could be found ordinarily roaming the shelves for my favorite romance novel or just taking in the musty odor that reveal my father to be the most educated in all of Italy.

"Um..." I tried to get him to look up.

"Buona sera la mia figlia" he said still avoiding eye contact. Italian was my first language but I much preferred English which I knew I had told him. I twirled my long hair around my fingers.

"Inglese, per favore" I requested hoping he would detect the pleading in my voice.

"You're forgetting to take your medicine," he glanced up. I bit my bottom lip in apology. I always forgot to take the darn stuff which was why I looked fifteen instead of twenty-five. My father had created a special medication to make my body age beyond the age of six for a more convenient use. It was much easier to get a thirty year old into Buckingham Palace than a lost six year old.

"Sorry," fawning wouldn't work so I would skip the proper flattery. "Would it be out of line to ask if I could go do something outside?"

"Completely," he shut the book and looked at me from his chair. My nut brown eyes were locked on his red ones and I sighed, hiding my urge to blink (stupid human reflex).

"Please?" I whined. "You want me to have human experiences so to the outside world I appear more human, so why can't I have them?"

"Because you're still too young," I hated it when he was over-protective. Which was all the time. It was annoying because even though he was my father he still had to use me as a weapon of mass destruction and intimidation. Come on, how can I do that if I look so young and innocent?

"I've been training forever," I batted my eyelashes. "If you would but touch my palm then you would know how much I want this." I held out my hand.

"No Serafinda," he used my full name even though everyone else called me Sera. "My daughter, you have to trust me."

I did the unthinkable. I placed two fingers on his hand and transmitted every memory of how hard I had worked to become accustomed to the sent of human blood, how I had learned to walk like a normal human girl, how I practiced stumbling over words in the mirror, all of my hard work that I spent years developing every skill needed. The last image I got to show him was the determination my eyes shone and how they hadn't been the deep red I longed for in months.

It was against our rules for anyone to touch our leader, my father, without his previous consent. I was still young and naive so I could always play the card that I was still a child, yet to learn to full magnitude of such transgressions and walk away with a slap on the wrist as opposed to burning in pieces.

When I drew my hand back I took a deep breath to keep from feeling light headed. There were the combined forces of him taking all my memories while I tried to send him as many images as I could think up. I knew my father would be upset but I was his favorite, he had raised me from the poor abandoned child I once was.

"No," he said sternly and I groaned. He looked terribly serious and I could feel my heart rate rise so I knew he could here it. We took "smelling fear" to a whole new level.

I opened my mouth to say something but he held up a hand in silence. "Absolutely not," he said. "You have no idea the preparations we have to make for someone to leave the castle, let alone you."

"But why am I so special?" I leaned against his desk with a hand under my chin in thought.

"You're unique," he reminded me. It was the excuse of all my teachers. Unique, unique, unique, that was all I ever heard!

"What if I don't want to be unique?"

"That was never your decision," my father's gaze was enough to send me into tears but I stood my ground. "We'll discus your punishment later," that was my cue to run along but I didn't take it. I was about to make another plea when I heard to door open behind me.

I jumped a bit like the moronic deaf vampire I was. When I turned I saw an empty doorway but when I turned back to my father I saw Demetri standing at my side. Damn his speed.

"I'm sorry to interrupt but there is a matter of urgency afoot," he held out his hand but my father didn't take it. Instead he pushed his chair back and walked with Demetri to the door as I glowered at the two of them.

Determined to be here when he got back I sat at my father's desk and looked at his book. It was an old book that held no meaning to me and I tossed it to the side. I fussed around with the other papers on his desk until I came to a manila folder labeled Cullen. I must have spent months looking through my father's files and marveling at the beauty of other vampires. I opened this one and flipped through some papers.

This wasn't a family I had heard of. They sounded oddly familiar, more so than they did when I had devoured the Denali Coven's file. There were endless notes on the family's history which I skimmed through with wonder. It wasn't until I found the picture of Edward Cullen and his mate, Isabella Cullen, that I knew something was wrong.

All the previous photos had been copies of family portraits or school photos taken from a yearbook. The ones of Isabella and Edward were all candid shots taken when they walked in front of a window or out a door. I could tell that Isabella must have been changed after she met Edward by the drastic change in her appearance.

She seemed familiar. I didn't want to call her Isabella but something else. I tried out different nicknames in my head to see which one fit. Iz...Issy...Belle...Bella, I stopped there. That one seemed to fit like two puzzle pieces. I didn't know why I felt so attached to her or the sorrow I felt whenever I saw one of her pictures even though she looked more than content with her mate.

I brushed my fingertips against the photo like she had the face of a porcelain doll. I stared at her for a good five minutes until I gasped for oxygen and quickly turned to the next photo where my hands started shaking.

"Renesmee..." a voice cooed light the sweetest of wind chimes. I felt the memory being dragged back from somewhere I couldn't remember. "So beautiful." It had to be Bella. She was talking to me. But why was she calling me such a weird name?

I threw it face down in frustration and raked my eyes against the next photograph, one with Bella and a baby in her hands. Me.

Memories flooded me along with pictures and voices, I cupped my hands over my ears and shut my eyes to try to lock them out but they just became brighter.

"Nessie," someone sung, I recognized them as Jacob, Jake, but I knew no one by the name. "Love of my life."

"My daughter, my angel," someone gasped. Edward's face and the word father lingered. "Amazing."

"Beautiful! We're going to have so much fun together, I can't wait to show you all the outfits I picked out for you!"

"Pretty baby..."

"She's happy, but wants her mother."

"Come to your Auntie Rose, I'll keep that mongrel away from you."

"A miracle, she' like nothing I've ever seen, I need to measure her immediately but she seems to be in perfect health. Just listen to that heartbeat!"

"Looks like Bella had it in her after all. Way to go Edward, you sure make one hell of a kid."

"I'll never let you go...."

"Stop!" I screamed out at the invisible voices. "Go away!"

"What's wrong?" Aro bust into the study while tears streamed down my face.

"Who are they?" I demanded, shoving the file at him. "Who is that baby? Why do I look like her?"

"They're no one of concern," he said comforting me. "They-"

"Am I her daughter?" my voice cracked three octaves in my outrage. He looked baffled so I clarified. "Edward and Bella Cullen. Are they my parents? And who is Jacob Black? Why isn't he in any of these pictures?" I quickly sorted through the pictures trying to find one to match the memory with no avail.

"Jacob Black is dead," he said solemnly. "As are all of those in the photographs. Now what did I tell you about going through your father's files?" he put a hand on gloved hand on my shoulder and I flinched away. He wasn't my father anymore.

"Why don't you take a walk outside?" he suggested as if giving me what I wanted would make everything else disappear.

He helped me from his chair and practically pushed me out the door and all I could do was walk completely dazed to the exit of the castle. Fully aware any vampire within a three mile radius heard what I had screamed no one bothered to stop me as I walked the empty streets of Volterra.

This was what I wanted, I had to remind myself. But as I paced the barren streets I couldn't do anything but let my mind wander with my feet. This was not happening. The images of Bella and Edward were burned into my memory along with a million of Jake. They weren't dead, I could feel it. They had to be alive.

It was hot outside and it bothered me. I couldn't take anything rationally in my state and immediately tore off the sleeves of my sweater like they were paper. It felt like my clothes were smothering me and I ripped my collar to shreds and turned my jeans into shorts. I tossed the rags off to the side of the street while I walked in the middle of the street.

When I felt I was far enough away from the castle I sat down on the stoop of someone's house and thought. I pulled the tie from my hair and threw it over my shoulder. I untangled my braid from my waist long hair with my fingers and I sat with my head in my hands before I forced myself to bring up the most painful of memories.

Her face was easy to bring up, I had only seen it a few moments ago. I locked my jaw and kept my eyes shut tightly and I refused to move until I remembered something about her. My hearing was nothing compared to Aro's or even Jane's but I could still hear the soft spoken word that the mother in the house next to me spoke to her child, a baby perhaps, as she lay them down.

"I love you," Bella, my mother told me. "More than anything. In our hearts we'll always be together. But when the time comes today, you have to leave me. Don't tell Jacob until I tell you to run."

I dragged up images of a brutal fight and then I remember being carried by a wolf. No, a werewolf. No, Jacob. This was giving me a headache but I forced myself to go on. Everything flashed by and I focused on when we stopped.

I forced myself to go on. This was worse than anything Jane could have done to me. I felt my heart was being pushed up my throat and I couldn't breathe. I wanted to stop, I would have given most anything to stop but my mind was working on two different frequencies, one too far ahead to care.

Aro. Aro and Caius were blocking Jacob and me from going to wherever we needed to be. There was Jacob's low growl as he tried to protect me. It was useless though, he silently told me to run and I did. But I remembered looking back. I caught the final blow Caius delivered before Jake whimpered and fell to the ground.

I nearly cried out. Actually, I did cry out. I stopped and let the tears run. It was my fault, for not finding out sooner. I could have run away...I have to run away. They were somewhere in the United States; somewhere with perpetual rain and tight knit communities. I sighed and held my head to my knees left whimpering in my misery.

This is why I didn't hear the footsteps.

last time i did not beg for reviews so that will be the control of my study. REVIEW!!!!!! please...?