A/N:

Released on November 5, 2019

I'm finally back!

I know, I know. It's been almost a year. I wish I'd gotten back into writing sooner, but life happened. I started working full time and going to college full time and I'm just now getting it balanced enough that I wanted to start writing again.

So I finished the first chapter of this book and made the cover. Then I had to go through writing the description for the book (which most of you will know can be difficult) and editing it to make sure it was ready.

Anyway, I'm so glad to be back but I won't have a schedule for updating quite yet because I just started writing again. I'll leave you to it. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Word Count: 2655

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Chapter 1: What's the Chance?

I had mostly settled in. Mostly.

I had just arrived home from school, stretching my senses out to locate my mom as I walked to the front door. The moment I found her I went into a panic, unlocking the door and racing with inhuman speed to my open bedroom door.

I caught sight of her kneeling on the floor, moving as if to pull something out from under my bed.

"Mom! What are you doing in my room?" I cried, backpack falling to the floor with a thump to emphasize my outrage.

She jumped up and spun around with a look of horror, eyes wide and jaw slack, a sharp intake of air the only noise she made as she stood from her spot on the floor.

I clamped my mouth shut, quickly running my tongue along my teeth to gauge their sharpness. Oh, thank god my fangs weren't out.

In the next moment, my mom was breathing again, a hand over her heart. "Alicia, you nearly scared me to death." She breathed out with a light laugh to ease the pain.

"Sorry." I muttered, still too panicked by the look on her face when she saw me.

That's the face she'd make if she found out what I am. Of course, there would be more terror, but in that instant I thought my teeth had sharpened or my eyes were glowing, any sign at all that I'm not human. If my heart still beat, it would've stopped just as hers did.

"You were so quiet, I didn't even hear you come inside." My mom shook her head in wonder. "I thought I heard the front door shut the moment you spoke..."

"Mom, what are you doing in my room?" I repeated my earlier inquiry. Yes, to avoid the subject of my speed, but also to find out why she was snooping in my room and if she found anything she shouldn't have seen.

"I wanted to look through one of our old photo albums but couldn't find it." She told me. "I thought it might be up here, but you got home a bit early today. Everything alright?"

I ignored the fact that she was clearly snooping in my room. "It would be in the storage area, Mom."

"Right. Of course." She agreed, glancing away from me guiltily.

I let out an inaudible sigh, softening my tone before speaking again. "Mom."

Her shoulders sagged in defeat, eyes glued to the floor. "You've been doing so well, Alicia. Can you blame me for wanting to know for sure that my baby's back?"

Her gaze wandered up to meet mine, filled with the most sincere emotion I'd seen from her in a while.

How could I possibly be angry with her when she cared so much and worried that my change in the past few months was only temporary?

"Come here." I reached out to her, embracing her once she took the necessary steps.

She must've been terrified that I'd return to my old ways of avoiding my family, sneaking out of the house, and getting into fights at school. She probably expected drugs or alcohol to be the cause.

I'd proved so far that I could be a good daughter, doing my best to stay out of any and all trouble, inside and outside of school. A big part of the reason I'd so far succeed had been Zane, but nobody needed to know that.

Especially since I hadn't told my parents about our relationship. Or about him in general. I mentioned his name once when I was headed out with friends and my parents asked who would be there.

Because yes, I had managed to make some friends since I'd been back home. Also mostly because of Zane.

He finally convinced me that it'd be better to blend in, have a crowd to hang out with to look normal. To be normal.

My mom let go of me after a good thirty seconds, blinking away what were most certainly tears.

"I'll help you find the photo albums." I conceded, moving toward our storage to change the topic to something less emotional.

~*~

"How happy are you that the school year is almost over?" I teased Zane from across the table, sat in our favorite corner of the library.

He glanced up at me, clearly drained and in no way allowing me to distract him further from his studies. "Plenty. But if you let me finish this quickly, we'll have a few minutes to ourselves before class."

A sweet smile lifted his lips for a moment as I huffed in mock annoyance. "Fine."

No sooner had the word left my mouth than he was back to writing out equations, occasionally consulting his calculator to double-check his work.

I'd offer to help but knew he didn't need it. Especially since he compelled his way into school using telepathy in the first place because he didn't have the proper paperwork. He did have to practice some before trying it out, but that was because he'd never controlled anyone before like I had.

I quickly discovered that Zane was not only street smart, but also school smart. The clever and calculating man I'd seen take on dangerous predators could also hold his own against tenth-grade math.

Which was why he so easily caught up in school, whereas I had struggled so much that it was clear that I'd have to attend summer school to make up for my crappy grades.

I was only given the opportunity to fix things over the summer because I'd been "sick" for a few weeks. But at least I wouldn't have to repeat the school year.

By the time I dragged myself out of my thoughts, Zane was finishing up the last problem.

And to make his intellectual skills even more impressive, he'd been out of school for the two years he'd been missing when Storm kidnapped him. I couldn't believe he caught up so quickly and I didn't want to admit that he was smarter than me. Maybe his good grades were just a result of his determination to do well and graduate. I didn't exactly care about getting all A's.

"So... What are our plans for tonight?" I asked as he put away his things, eager to take my mind off of school.

"Since it's Thursday... I have to work." Of course, I knew that he had to work. He'd been working at a local family-owned restaurant since we started settling into town upon our return. It turned out that he wasn't just good at making me grilled cheese sandwiches like at Ash's house. He was good enough at making other things that he was hired on as a cook.

An eye roll ensued naturally. "I mean after that. Do we get to hang out tonight? Just the two of us?"

He sent a look my way as if offended by the request. "You want to leave out our friends? Hurt their feelings at your own risk." He leaned in to whisper dramatically while adjusting the backpack on his shoulder. "You never know what they could be hiding. What if they're secretly monsters?"

Zane went as far as to bare his teeth, thankfully at their human length, mimicking our own kind. "Cut that out!" I hissed, lowering my voice to keep the few onlookers from overhearing. "We're the only monsters here."

He straightened up and continued walking into the school hallway like he hadn't just made a fool of himself. Not that anyone would criticize too harshly. The judgmental student body tended to overlook infrequent odd behavior when good looks such as Zane's were involved.

"My bad. They're probably hunters sent undercover to spy on us."

"Zane!" I muttered in a slight outrage. "And you wonder why I have a hard time trusting people. How am I supposed to be friends with anyone when you bring up the fact that they could be hunters?"

"Oh, relax." He scoffed, dropping an arm around my shoulders to pull me closer. "You know that was a joke. Besides, what's the chance that the people we chose to be friends with are covert hunters? It's like a million to one."

"I once thought the same thing about telepaths," I pointed out, "That we were one in a million. And it probably is true, since there are over seven billion people on Earth. We could even be one in a billion."

That settled in for a minute before Zane moved on. "You're good at making a point, I'll give you that. But we can trust our friends are human."

He paused in the practically empty hallway, most kids still in the cafeteria with a minute left before the warning bell would ring to signal the end of lunch. We had a habit of sneaking off to the library to talk or do homework, usually both, during lunch to avoid wasting money on food. It wasn't like we needed that type of sustenance.

"And yes, tonight can be just us. Henry and Ethan have football practice anyway for the big game tomorrow. And you know Taylor and Faith will be there watching." He reminded me of our friends' plans.

I wasn't as invested in remembering what was going on with them, still being a bit hesitant about getting close to them. Even if the idea of them being hunters sent to harm us was irrational, something could happen to make us leave our normal life.

I couldn't help asking myself, what's the chance that two vampires could hide out in human society? Especially with Jake confirming that we had local vampire hunters, our odds couldn't be good. Was it only a matter of time?

Needless to say, despite being back for almost three months, I hadn't quite shaken the fear that something could uproot my entire life again and ruin everything we'd built here. My own introverted ways didn't help with me not really having friends either.

I forced myself away from my typical melancholy thoughts. All it took to get a smile on my face was gazing at my boyfriend's grin. I couldn't help but lean in for a quick kiss in answer to his announcement.

I glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the wall, watching as it inched closer to time to go. "I'll see you after class." I said just before the bell went off, leaving him at the door of his classroom.

~*~

As was typical for us, Zane was walking me halfway home before he would be forced to split off to get to work. Or more accurately, I walked him halfway to work. I was supposed to ride the bus home, but that's another opportunity to get into a fight, which I now tried hard to avoid. It also helped that I'd rather spend time with Zane than my stuck-up classmates.

"So everything's still good at home?" He inquired, as invested in my life as ever. He'd been more interrogative about me and my family's relationship status since we got back. Despite the fact that I've always loathed people getting into my business, it didn't bother me when Zane did it. I knew he was checking on me solely because he cared.

I pondered my current state at home. My dad was ignoring me, as per usual. That I could deal with. Lucy was fine, for the most part. My mom was thrilled for me to be home, even if she didn't believe my intentions were pure.

How could I blame her for thinking I was on drugs or something equally horrible? I wasn't the best daughter after estranging myself from my family. I still wasn't sure how long I could make-believe "happy family" while I still hadn't uncovered the truth about where my telepathy came from. But I'd have to figure that out later.

Jake was the difficult one recently, in a constant state of bugging me about being a vampire hunter. I couldn't possibly correct his wrong assumption that I was a hunter. That conclusion answered enough questions about my odd behavior over the years that he didn't ask too many incriminating questions. If he found out that me and Zane are vampires, things would go wrong very quickly.

There'd be no saving the normal life I'd gained. That is, if I still had a life. Needless to say, my secret couldn't get out. Despite me making Jake promise to focus on school to keep him away from the hunters because he refused to give up that new part of his life, I was sure that he at least had minimal contact with them. I was only delaying the inevitable. Jake found his first serious interest in life and no one would be taking that from him.

"Things are fine." I eventually answered. "Jake still infuriates me with questions about what it's like to be a hunter, but I think he's finally letting off the subject."

~*~

I was so very wrong. Jake was nowhere near letting it go. It had been a few days since he'd annoyed me with his incessant questions, but he was back at it the moment I walked through the door.

"Where is everyone?" I asked when I rounded the corner to the kitchen, already knowing Jake was there due to my keen senses. A quick sweep of the house with my ears indicated no other heartbeats, so it was just me and Jake.

"Lucy had to stay after school." My older brother announced from where he sat scribbling answers on what I presumed was homework. "Mom and Dad are out. They said they'd be back in a few hours."

"Weird. I wonder what they're off doing." I ruminated as I absentmindedly opened the fridge, my stomach growling at me to do so.

He shrugged in response. "They mentioned something about spending more time together and that we need to be 'more of a family,' whatever that means."

My old self emerged through a scoff and my usual sarcasm. "Yeah, right. Because Dad is so loving and really wants to spend more time with any of us."

I shook my head in disbelief of my parents' antics this time. I knew that I was supposed to have an adjusted attitude whenever it comes to family, but even after months of faking being fine with how things are, I couldn't help but occasionally react negatively toward their attempts at seeming perfect.

"I know." Jake agreed with an eye roll. Fortunately for me, his attitude on the subject was in no way better than mine.

He perked up when I sat down with the water bottle I'd grabbed from the fridge. I was "hungry" in a sense, but not for food. There was nothing I could do about it while speaking to my brother, who couldn't know about my altered diet consisting only of blood.

"That just leaves us." Jake said with a sly smile. "So you can finally tell me what it was like being a lone hunter."

A groan of frustration escaped my lips as I set my bottle down a bit harshly. "I already told you, Jake. I don't want you getting involved any more than you already have, which means we're not talking about it. Enjoy a normal life."

He kept up the friendly grin and attempted a different approach that certainly wasn't better. "Come on, Alicia! What's the harm? I didn't have a normal life before discovering vampires. None of us did. You don't even know what normal is."

His tone made his words come across as joking, but they instantly angered me. I snatched up my water bottle, the chair I was previously sat in scrapping backward in an echo of my bad mood. "When you want to actually spend time together without grilling me on some of the most horrible weeks of my life, you can come find me."