My head was pounding like it was yesterday. It made me wonder if it was every going to stop. The light pouring in from the curtain-less window didn't help either. The room didn't have a clock that I could see, so I didn't know what time it was when I woke up. The sun was shining bright so I figured I slept decently late. It hurt to open my eyes as the sunlight shot through my eyeballs and pierced into my brain; torturing my nervous system to a point where it was hard to stand the pain. Slowly, I rubbed my hand across my forehead and face hoping that if I woke up some more, the pain would stop.

My bones creaked as I rolled out of bed and shuffled around my dresser for some new clothes and my toothbrush. When I found them, I dragged myself across the hall into the bathroom that Anna had told me to use as I pleased. The faucet groaned to a start as I turned it on, but it was quick to steam up the bathroom and ease my headache and stiff muscles. The bath steamed at the surface as I pulled off my clothes.

I just sat in the bath for awhile and let my mind wander. A couple of days ago my life was normal. Well, what I considered normal. Now, I was this… creature. Agh, I tried to say it, but the words just didn't seem to flow right whenever I tried. My tongue wouldn't form around it even though I tried a thousand times to get my vocal chords to vibrate just right to make me say it.

I just couldn't do it.

The word alone was not as frightening considered I felt like someone dropped an anvil on my back and now I have to carry it with me everywhere I go. My mind was clouded, and it was hard for me to think logically and use common sense the way I'm used to. It all just seemed so…unimportant now. Nothing before these past few days seemed to matter anymore. Life was just beginning and I could feel it. Some change was going to happen and I could run away and do it by myself (which I knew I wouldn't do), or I could be with Shae, and she could help me through it. Yeah, Shae can help. So I wasn't completely alone was I? But wait, I was, in fact, leaving people behind. The Schreiver's were my parents and they raised me. Monster or not, I was still their Emmy-Rey; I could feel it deep inside. Christina and Jade must be so worried not knowing what happened to their big sister. Liam I couldn't so much see as being worried as much as seeing it as an opportunity to raid my stuff. I laughed at this thought, but at the same time I couldn't help but just cry and feel like I was abandoning them.

The smell of crackling, smoked bacon wafted through the cracks in the door distracting me from my thoughts. I emptied the tub and, almost instantaneously, I threw a towel around me to dry off and slid on my sweats and a long sleeved scarlet shirt. I rubbed the towel through my air and uncaringly ran out the door. I didn't realize how hungry I was. When was the last time I ate?

My bare feet padded across the hardwood floor of the hallway as I reached the top of the stairs. The sound of my feet faded as I transferred to the white carpeted living room. "Good morning, Emily!" Anna chimed from the stove. She held a spatula almost stereotypically in her hand with a flowery apron tied around her waist. Such the mom she was. The burners on the stove were completely filled with frying pans. Generous amounts of pancakes, bacon, and eggs sat steaming on the table with more to come by the looks of it. "Do you do this every morning?" I asked while taking a seat at the table and pouring myself a glass of orange juice from the nearby pitcher. I could get used to this kind of eating. "Maybe once a week," Anna returned her focus to the burners, "it just depends on my mood! Sometimes I'll just make the boys eat cereal. Oh boy, do they hate that stuff! Not enough taste for them I guess." Her last sentence trailed off with a sigh.

I was lost in the gargantuan amounts of food knowing not where to start. "Where is everyone?" I asked while loading my plate. There were tons of people here just yesterday. Where could they have possibly gone? "Well, they're mostly asleep," Anna responded, "Spencer was thrilled when she realized another girl was moving in! See, there only three of us women. We're outnumbered!" She laughed. "Who else lives here?" I asked and took a bite out of the pancake.

"Reno and Nico live here because their family lives all the way in Greece, and Isaac, Jake, and Troy live here because they're too young to have their own place with no parents to help," Anna sighed, "Harper and I are as close to parents as it gets for them. All of them. It's a shame, but I'm happy to do it. They're like children to me. Granted I have Kaylie, but still, I love them all to death."

It didn't surprise me that some of them didn't have parents. Maybe it should have, but it didn't. I ate in silence after that. They all seemed so young, but so grown up. I knew creatures like them aged differently, but how I didn't know. Maybe, like vampires (or so I've read), they stay at a certain age, or maybe they just age slower. Anna didn't give me the chance to ask because she bolted upstairs as soon as she heard Kaylie's cry. It amazed me how much of the mother she was.

This made me miss my family all the more.

I hadn't realized yet that I would never see them as my family ever again.

My hopes still dwelled in my heart, and I knew that they were all for naught; I couldn't diminish it no matter how much I tried to forget. The Idaho chill was bringing in a draft through the open windows which dragged my attention away from my self-pitying. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I wondered why on earth the windows would be wide open in the middle of January? Putting my now empty plate in the sink, I went to the living room with my arms wrapped around me. The giant window was slid all the way open. I crawled onto the long leather couch that sat in the window to shut it.

I slid the window down about a quarter inch before a cough forced me to turn around. "I wouldn't shut that if I were you," It didn't sound like a threat, but that's what I read it as, "it gets way to hot around here." "What are you going to do about it?" the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stood on end. Maybe I was being overly rude being the new girl here, but I wasn't about to take being threatened. He smiled and chuckled a bit. It was a great smile. "You won't feel it yet," he said while approaching me, "but you will soon. I can smell it on you." I didn't really say anything except for a few grumbled, incoherent words. His nose was wide for his slender face and his lips were thin. Bronze hair hung messily in every which way and across his deep, sapphire eyes. The gorgeous white teeth accentuated his tanned skin. "I'm Jake," he introduced nonchalantly.

"Emily," I responded absently.

"Yeah, I know who you are," he laughed, "everyone does."

Everyone except me.

A cold chill shot up my spine as another wind gust blew through the window. "I don't really remember what cold feels like," Jake mumbled and put his hand up to the window. I looked at him, confused. "Feel my skin," he said. "Excuse me?" I asked in sheer misunderstanding. He laughed and held out his hand. I hesitated. This guy was weird or maybe I was just weird. Maybe this was normal for people like him. He laughed and grabbed my hand.

I gasped, at the unexpected touch.

He felt like a damn furnace.

"Are you running a fever or something?" I asked incredibly concerned and put my hand to his forehead. I usually followed these instincts when Jade or Christina was sick. They all seemed so foolish now.

"Our bodies run about one-oh-five," Jake said, "your temperature is slowly rising. You may not feel it now, but you will." "Why are you telling me this?" I gripped his hand with my other ice cube of a hand. "I don't really know," Jake shrugged while eyeing our hands, "Anna told me to tell you more about us. And when you were about to close the window, I figured now was as good a time as ever."

"Why didn't Anna just tell me?"

"She probably would have if she wasn't busy with Kaylie. But who knows?"

I didn't say anything. "You don't talk much do you?" Jake inquired. I thought about it for a second, "I do when I feel like it, or when I have something to say." "Don't worry," Jake stood up, "You'll warm up to us. We don't bite, or at least we won't." I laughed dryly at the pun. As Jake left, I became increasingly terrified to shut the window. If my body temperature was rising as Jake said, I couldn't feel it which made it harder to believe that I was actually what they were telling me. Contrary to hot, I was cold. I wonder how much I would feel it when it happened.

Feeling the need to drink something hot, I shuffled back to the kitchen and located a coffee mug and practically searched every cupboard for a bag of tea or maybe even some instant coffee. It really didn't matter to me at the moment. In the back of the shelf above the stove, I found a lone box of tea that was gathering dust. It wasn't anything special, just a classic Lipton something or other. I opened the box and stuck the tea bag in the steaming water.

All this was ridiculous. The whole concept of a 'supernatural' society was absurd. If it did truly exist, it was a hard concept to grasp. Even though Harper showed me, I still couldn't believe it. A trick, that's all it was. It was a trick of my mind just trying to baffle me.

"Sorry for leaving so abruptly," Anna trotted back to the kitchen. Her sudden reappearance almost caused me to scald myself with the tea when I jumped, "I had to feed the baby." "Don't worry," I reassured her with a slight edge to my voice, "when my sisters were that young, none of us got any sleep." "Sisters?" Anna paused for a second, "…oh right! Christina and Jade. Cute girls! The Schreiver's are a very nice family. I'm glad Bryant and Lyra trusted them enough to take care of you…" Anna was quiet after that.

"Bryant and Lyra?" I asked moments later, "Who are they?"

Anna didn't respond at first. She put down the plate she was washing and turned to me. A small, tormented smile graced her flawless face. Her eyes were sad and almost on the brink of tears. She was fighting something inside. It looked like she wanted to tell me something by the way she bit her bottom lip.

After a minute, she motioned for me to follow her as she descended down a small staircase of about three or four steps and continued down into a large entertainment room. We stopped at a large picture frame in the little stairwell.

There was a man and a woman sitting on a wooden bench in a park somewhere judging by the few kids in the background chasing after each other. The trees' leaves were painted beautiful oranges and yellows; they fell to the ground in pairs and many piles sat where people in futile effort tried to rake them even though twice as many would fall the next day. The woman was laughing and holding the man's thick, muscular arm. Dark masses of loose curls spilled out from the bottom of a cream colored hat, and deep, affectionate ocean blue eyes had the shine of indescribable happiness that was so rare in a person. In a way, she looked like Anna by just how she looked so happy and caring. The man was tall and bulky with a lot of muscle. He had a smile on his face as well, but it wasn't the same smile that the woman had, but it still looked as though he were utterly happy. He had the dark hair the woman had that made his ice blue eyes seem about ten times brighter in comparison to his tanned skin.

"Emily," Anna said softly, "these are you parents, Bryant and Lyra Valora." A lump caught in my throat; my mind instantly raced back to the Schriever household. They were the only parents I'd ever known, and now Anna was telling me everything before all this werewolf nonsense was a lie.

If Anna was saying something at that point, I couldn't hear her.

"I want to talk to them," I finally said without looking at her.

"Oh honey, they passed away."

Another pang to my heart, but that wasn't what I was talking about.

"No," I balled my hands to tight fists and my eyes filled with tears, "not them."

"Then who?"

"My parents, the Schriever's. The ones who raised me."

"You can't," Anna's harsh words made me flinch, but I still didn't look at her. "Why?" I asked through gritted teeth, my eyes glued to the picture. "Our existence is compromised enough as it is," Anna said, her voice a little calmer, "It's a risk having any humans knowing that we exist, and there are humans that do know, and they are under constant surveillance." "Well, they already know, so what's the risk?" I asked harshly. "It's too dangerous," Anna retaliated, "you can't speak with them." I felt the muscles in my shoulders shudder and a sharp dagger of heat spiraled down my spine. The shuddering didn't stop. My muscles began to twitch restlessly as though something were trying to break out. My body was getting warm, too warm. As the muscles twitched, my body became hotter and hotter. A snarl escaped my throat that I didn't see coming at all. "Emily?" Anna's voice was hard as she eyed me, "Emily, calm down." Another snarl ripped out from behind my teeth.

At the top of the staircase I recognized Spencer and two other boys that I didn't recognize, all of them releasing a series of threatening growls through gritted teeth. My body was unbearably hot now, and I screamed, but it came out more of a howl. Spencer and the boy ran down the stairs as I fell to the ground. The blood that ran through my veins felt like it had gone through a boiler and then it was poured back into my body. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my eyes watered. I was lightheaded and the world spun so fast I didn't know what was going on. I tore at my shirt with more force and success than I had anticipated. The sleeves were no more than rags now and my ripped made accidental slashes on my arms and torso.

The pain was agonizing.

It was like I was chained to a piece of superheated metal over a bed of fire.

"Emily!" It could've been Anna's voice, but I couldn't see anything but red. I tried to find her through the swirling vortex of fire I found myself in. There were other voices. More now than just the three that I knew were in the room. "Help me!" I cried. I couldn't hear myself, but maybe someone could make this pain go away. "It's ok, Emily," a man's voice that I didn't recognized said soothingly, "it'll be over soon." I screamed again as another surge of fire blazed fiercely across my body.

I felt a small pinch in my stomach that was an unfamiliar pain compared to the fire.

Instantly, I relaxed and the pain stopped.

My vision went back to normal as more of these pinching sensations made the small traces of fire go away. There were people around that I recognized and some I didn't, but there was definitely more than before. My arms and torso stung from where I had tried to rip off my shirt in desperation. My head was resting in Anna's lap though I don't remember how I ended up there. "I'm pumping her with as much morphine as I can," a familiar, smooth voice said, "but her heat is burning it up as fast as I put it in, so I'm not sure how much I can subdue the pain. Not until Dr. Roxford gets here." "Thank you, Nico," Anna said, "Where did you find it?"

"Medicine cabinet upstairs," he said, "we had extras."

I tried to push myself up, but I was quickly pushed back down by numerous hands. "Just rest, Emily," Anna cooed. I shook my head and tried to say something, but it ended up in a garbled mess. I was far from a peaceful rest, so I just watched as the people moved around me. I saw Spencer talking on a phone, and I heard voices from the living room. Minute after minute, the boy named Nico kept pumping me morphine from a syringe, and that's when I finally recognized him through my shroud of pain relieving drugs. "Hey," I laughed stupidly, "I reco'nize you. You-you were a' the coffee shop, an-an' you smelled really, really good." I broke into a round of hysterics when I saw him smile at me. His same black hair and ominous, wintry eyes seemed so odd to me even past all the drugs.

"Hey, Shay-shay!" I chortled as Shae walked to me with a horrified look on her face, "Whas' goin' on?" She looked at me like I had something growing out of my head. I knew why, but nothing at the moment seemed to matter in the least. She started talking to Anna, but my head made no sense of it. Again, I tried to get up, but no one really made the effort to stop me this time. "Where you going, Emily?" Anna asked. "To go play in the snow!" I laughed as I tried to fumble my way upstairs, "It's too crowded in here." Surprisingly, I managed to roll and crawl my way to the back door and shuffle onto the patio. I just sat there as the snow that fell melted inches away from my body.

The morphine was beginning to wear off, and the slight burn was starting to come back, but it wasn't as bad as before, so I figured I would be alright. I examined the scratches on my arms and tried to pick away the dried blood but it was a lost cause. Realizing how stupid I'd been, I pushed myself up and stumbled to balance myself on the nearby table. The burn was more intense now, but I just closed my eyes and hoped it would go away. "Emily," Nico's voice was closer to me that I had expected. I hadn't even heard him come outside. He held a fresh syringe in his hand. He began to raise it to my bare shoulder, but I swatted it away. "No. More. Drugs." I said through flashes of the fire. "It'll help," Nico tried to persuade me, but I knew that I could get through this by myself. I gasped as the fire grew hotter again. "Emily –" He began. "No!" I growled, but my demand followed by a cry of pain did little to persuade him that I was fine. "Nico!" Spencer's voice echoed through the kitchen, "the doctor's here, bring her inside."