I would just like to say before we begin, it's probably necessary for any readers to read my first story 'Twilight, My Way' for you to understand what's going on here straight away. It explains what I talk a lot about in this and future chapters because I will refer to past events. So if you haven't read Twilight, My Way, go read! Scooch! Lol, but if you want to be confused, keep reading XD

But for those of you who've come to this after reading Twilight, My Way, thanks for sticking with me. I know you may not like some future events, but it will end well, I promise :D

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. Which really sucks. But that's beside the point ... unfortunately -.-

1. Dreaming

I blinked around in horror. Surely I could get rid of this recurring – and very real – nightmare for one night? Just one night? My despairing thoughts were broken up by a sharp pain in my wrist, my shoulders, my arms ... and by a voice. "It was murder," a red-headed vampire hissed and grabbed my wrist – my injured wrist. I hissed in pain as she squeezed lightly on the sprain – lightly for her. Dream or no, it hurt like crazy. Just like every night, I held back a whimper as the pain shot up my arm again and – just like every night – I tried to pull my hand away. Obviously, that didn't turn out too well. The vampire didn't let me go, but merely squeeze my wrist tighter.

"You didn't see what he did to her," I growled at her. She was the enemy now. There was no trace of the girl I'd known left, I could see it. I felt a rush of hate. Bloody vampires! Bloody Carlos!

"I don't have to!" she spat. "What he did to your sister or not is none – of – my – concern." She accentuated every one of those last four words with painful squeezes to my wrist. I felt my heart drop to my toes as I realised she'd said 'your' sister, not 'our' sister. That was more painful than any physical blow that I'd ever been dealt.

"She's our sister," I growled at her. "Ours, not mine! Come on Kivvy! Don't you remember anything?!" Now I've never been one for begging, but I think that's about as close as I'm gonna get. My thoughts were always the same, like I couldn't control them, like I was reliving that night over and over again with no memory that it had happened before – but it had.

"I remember James saving you! I remember him sparing you both! I remember him being with me! He didn't deserve this!" She spat, throwing my wrist down by my side and I growled at the pain as it once more lanced up my arm.

"So you don't care that he tried to kill Bella?" I asked incredulously.

"Quite honestly? No!" she spat at me and my knees shook. This was not what I'd thought of when I'd even entertained the idea that James was right and Kiv had changed. This was worse than anything I'd imagined. Because in my mind, Kiv had always been my sister, and I didn't think anything could change that. But clearly, I'd never known how much the vampire venom could change a person on the inside, not just physically.

"You don't mean that Kiv!" I growled at her. I was still clinging to the hope that this was just the grief from James' death talking.

"No Taliah!" she spat at me, "I do! What would it take to make you believe that?"

"Nothing will make me believe that!" I hissed at her, "You know you care!" But Kiv wasn't listening to me anymore, she was walking slowly around the pile of ashes, lost in her thoughts, but I could hear her murmurs from here.

"Cullen... This is his fault. If he hadn't been sooo over-protective ... But no matter ... he will pay for this murder ... he will pay as I have paid ..."

"Kiv, what the hell are you going on about!" I snapped at her, "This was James' fault and no-one else's!" I stepped back in shock as she appeared right in front of me.

"Never," she hissed at me, "Never, speak his name to me. Never try and pin the blame on my love!" I didn't even see her arm as it shot out, but I felt it. Something caught me hard in the stomach and the wind was knocked out of me as I felt my feet leave the ground. I couldn't pinpoint where I was going to end up, but I didn't need too, for seconds later, my head slammed into the mirror. I could hear it shatter and I felt it pierce my skin as I landed on the broken fragments. I rolled over weakly, the blood cascading down my forehead and into my eyes. It was all I could do to stay conscious and I could barely manage that. I tried to pick my head up off the floor but it fell back against the glass covered ground. My vision was blurry, and my eyes were now filled with blood as it flowed down into them, but I still sought out Kiv.

She didn't seem to notice the blood at all, in fact she was seemingly oblivious to me altogether. She was back by the pile of ashes. I could see her eyes were red once more, and they were clear. She ran her fingers back through the ash and smeared it across her face creating lines across her pale cheeks.

Suddenly, my brain deviated from my memory and Kiv rapidly shot to my side from her place by the ashes. Tilting my head up so I could look her in her smirking face, she leant down close to me. I tried to move away, to prevent her from biting me. But she wasn't I'm going to bite me. She just moved slowly down until her mouth was next to my ear and whispered words that sounded so innocent and yet sent chills down my spine.

"Happy Birthday...Sister."

Waking up from that dream was never pleasant, and the alarm that signalled it was time to get ready for school did not improve my mood. But the one thing that did as I pushed the hard to ignore 'dream' out of my mind was that the Kiv in my dream had been right. It was my birthday. I sighed, rolling over onto my back after shutting off my alarm. It was September 13 and I was eighteen years old. But the dream and school weren't the only things marring my happiness; it was the fact that my best friends in the whole world were ignoring me – as they had been all summer, the wonderful summer that I spent with some of my new friends.

But it just wasn't right without the Winters': Zoltan, Zander, Rainey and Raines. Two sets of twins, just like me and Bella, but ever since I rejected Zoltan, my ex-boyfriend and bestest friend in the world on the night of the prom because I had feelings for another guy that was already dating someone, he and his siblings had acted like I didn't exist. A pretty easy feat really considering they still lived in Arizona while Bella, my dad Charlie and I all lived in the rainiest place in the world: Forks. My life sounded like a bad soap opera.

It had taken me almost till the end of the summer to get over the distance Zoltan – and by extension me – had put between us. I'd been snappier than usual and in what Bella called my 'emo mode' for longer than ever before. I hated the silence and I missed Zoltan more than anyone. Every time I thought about that night at prom I wanted to kick myself in the face. I'd actually tried a couple of times, but strangely enough it didn't work too well. Every time I thought of him was like another punch in the gut. Needless to say, the crush I'd had evaporated quickly because I couldn't help but blame that for losing Zoltan.

But I'd gotten used to the silence, even though I tried to call them every day, they just never picked up – they had caller ID. My texts were never replied to, their email accounts had been deleted and they'd blocked me from their friends list on Myspace and Facebook. As much as it hurt, and as much as I missed them, I was used to it. But the breaking of the birthday tradition was the thing that was making me lazy and sad this morning. Among us, it was normal to text each other at exactly 12:01 on the night of one of our birthdays, and I'd stayed up till two this morning, just hoping that a text would come. It never did. The four Winters' were close, they might as well have been quadruplets, and anything that hurt one of them was automatically an enemy. I had hurt Zoltan, so now I was the enemy.

I'd taken to wearing our ring again. I say 'our' because he had one exactly like mine. Back when I'd left Phoenix with mom, Bella and Kiv – wince – for the first time, he'd given one of a set of two rings. It was black with the silver word 'Life' on it, but when you turned it upside-down it read 'Death'. He'd kept the other one in the set and worn in almost all the time. My fingers were too thin for the large band, so I'd hung it from a silver chain instead. My fingers curled around it as I thought of it. I hadn't taken it off since I'd screwed up so badly.

Rolling out of bed to distract myself from my depressing thoughts, I got changed, put on some heavy black eyeliner, tugged a brush through my deadly straight black-dyed hair and shot out the door to Bella's room. Just because I was upset didn't mean I was going to show anyone else. I was gonna try be happy on my birthday. "Bella!" I yelled, pounding on her door, "Get up sleepy-head! It's our birthday!" I heard a groan from behind the door, but it was a fully conscious groan too. She was awake. "I'm coming in Bells!" I laughed and shoved open the door. Bella had pulled the covers over her head, something she did when she was crying and trying to hide it, if she wanted someone to go away, or when she was thinking and didn't want to be interrupted. Right about then, I didn't care. "Come on birthday-Bells!" I laughed, tugging the blankets off her and she sat up, glaring at me.

"How can you be so happy?" she hissed, glaring at me with big brown eyes.

"Umm...It's our birthday?" It was almost a question, like she'd forgotten. I knew she hadn't, Bella just wasn't a birthday person. Rather absurd if you ask me.

"How can you celebrate?" she groaned, "We're older! I'm older."

"Oh dear God," I sighed, "This has nothing to do with the attention we're gonna receive from the vamps today does it? This is because your Eddie-boy is stuck at seventeen, isn't it?" I accused and she nodded. "It's a year Bella," I laughed softly, "It doesn't make any difference."

"It does to me," she said loftily and left me sitting on her bed as she headed towards the bathroom. I shook my head. That girl always found the weirdest things to worry about. Like this situation here. She wasn't happy because she was now – physically – eighteen while Edward Cullen, her boyfriend, is stuck forever at seventeen.

Oh yeah, did I forget the part where he and his family are vampires? Hehe, oops. Yeah, the Cullens are all vampires, and believe me I was not happy when I first met them. Mostly I yelled at them and glared at them a lot, but I reconsidered when Jasper Hale – my big 'brother' – told me to give them all a chance. That coupled with the fact that Edward saved my sister's life kind of made me change my mind about them a bit. Oh yeah, and they drink animal blood, not human. Does that cover everything? Good, cause it should.

And so far, I'm happy that Bells is happy. Edward and I aren't exactly best friends or anything, we're too different, but I love Jasper and Emmett, they're good guys. For vampires. I'd spent most of my summer with those two, playing video games and pulling pranks with Emmett, Jasper was teaching me history a bit more and he loved telling me about Texas, and I'd just sit and read with him a lot. Reading helped with my emo moods. Then of course, we all loved gambling, so it was a fun summer.

Sighing at my sister's less than enthusiastic attitude towards our birthday, I left her room and skipped down the stairs to grab an apple or something for breakfast. Why always an apple? 'Cause I never grew tired of them and there always seems to be one just lying around. Surprisingly, our dad Charlie was sitting at the table waiting for us. Usually he'd left for the police station by now. Just so's you know, Charlie is a cop, the chief of police. And he's still an awesome dad.

"Morning father o' mine," I sang as I went to give him a hug and then danced off to track down that apple.

"Morning Tali," he smiled, "Happy Birthday kid."

"Thanks dad. Ha! I'm eighteen; you can't boss me around anymore!" I laughed at him and he frowned.

"You'll do as I say missy," he growled at me and I laughed again.

"Of course dad, why would I want to go against you anyway?" He chuckled as I finally found an apple and bit into it. Of course, I had gone against him at times in my life, but they were surprisingly few considering it was me. Generally though, I listened to my dad, there weren't many rules to follow really. Other than; if you didn't cook we eat pizza for tea, stay out of the woods if you can help it, be in by ten on school night and don't run away if you get pissed at your boyfriend. Of course, Bella had broken that last one majorly before the summer break when she'd run away because she'd supposedly had boyfriend problems. Really, she was running from a vampire intent upon drinking her blood, but we couldn't tell Charlie that. And the result of taking care of that situation was my nightmares. Nightmare really, it was always the same one.

My brooding thoughts were broken off as Bella almost fell down the stairs and into the kitchen. She looked worried and judging by the presents on the table, she should be. Bella hated presents too. And no, she's not normal. She's a very special girl who needs to take her medicine or she'll be carted back to the mental hospital. Not really, she's just a weird person.

"Morning dad," she greeted him and her voice was strained. I was definitely going to talk to her about that later. She can't go all depressed because her boyfriend is physically a year younger than her.

"Morning Bells," Charlie smiled, "Now I know you hate presents but -"

"Dad!" Bella groaned and I smirked. See?

"Suck it up Bells," I laughed, "Charlie and Renee put an effort into getting you something, so you will open them and you will like them." Bella shot me a withering look and took the first present Charlie handed to her. He threw me a grateful glance as she carefully peeled off the wrapping paper and I smiled back. Hey, he was an awesome dad and I just said what he never would. Her two presents were a digital camera and a scrap book and I grinned at her. They were perfect; she was always the sentimental one in the family. Well, out of the two of us. Well more than me.

"Thanks dad," she smiled and she looked like she was about to cry. I almost growled. It was a single year! A year!

"You're welcome kid. Now," he turned to me, "Your turn Tali."

"If I must," I sighed sarcastically and chucked the apple core in the bin on my way to take the present from Charlie. The first gift was heavy in my hands and I quickly ripped the paper off, squealing happily when I saw what was inside.

"That one's from your mother," Charlie nodded gruffly as I flicked happily through the pages.

"I totally have to ring her and thank her tonight," I smiled. It was a book. 'The Host' by Stephanie Meyer to be exact (AN: I happen to love this book, so now Tali does too XD).

"Dad," Bella sighed in exasperation "You do realise now she won't pay attention in school at all? She'll be too busy reading!" She'd been kind enough to hang around while I opened my presents, though the age thing – or at least I guessed it was the age thing – was still bothering her.

"In that case Tali, you have to leave the book at home." I frowned and put it on the table with a thud, glaring at Bella.

"Traitor," I muttered at her and she gave a small smile.

"Here's mine kid," Charlie said, holding up the next, evenly shaped package. I wasted no time in tearing that open too. I was speechless when I stared at the two CD's I was holding in my hand. The first was 'Scream Aim Fire' by Bullet For My Valentine and the second was 'The Silent Force' by Within Temptation. "If you don't like them I can take them back," Charlie sounded a bit embarrassed but Bella shook her head.

"That's not her 'Wow, why would someone give me this' face, that's her 'Oh my God, this is awesome beyond words' face."

"Really?" Charlie seemed sceptical but I silently wrapped my arms around him and hugged him. "Glad ... glad you like them," he muttered gruffly as I let him go. I went to walk up the stairs, CD's still in hand when Bella caught my arm.

"Uh uh Tali, school." She seemed apologetic but I wasn't buying it.

"But Bella!" I whined, "The music!"

"You can play the music when we get home," she promised, pulling me away from the stairs.

"Stupid logical sister," I muttered as I tried to walk out the door but Bella grabbed me again. "What now," I growled.

"Tali, you have to put the CD's down." I glanced down at the two cases in my hands and I reluctantly put them down on the kitchen bench.

"Don't worry, they'll be here when you get home Tal," Charlie smiled, pleased that I liked – or was in love with – his gift. I've said previously I don't think my name could get any shorter. It has.

"Thanks dad," I smiled at him as I walked out the house, waving goodbye. I quickly tracked down my skateboard and bag which was somehow dry after being left out all night, hearing Bella's ancient truck roar to life in the background and quickly chased my sister down the street towards the school.

Ha, the next story has begun! Squee! Reviews are appreciated!