Kiara Black was no stranger to trouble. She'd been in it enough in her life to know when she was either in slight trouble that could be fixed, or when she had pushed it too far and ended up in the deep end.

Growing up in a small house with three other siblings had never done much for her trouble making tendencies and sometimes short temper but after her mother had died from a fatal car accident when she was younger, her older sisters had moved out rather quickly. Kiara wished she didn't resent them for leaving her with her twin brother and father, but she was sure a piece of her would always hurt with how easily they upped and left.

Her father had always told her how her mother almost passed out with shock when she found out she was pregnant for the second time with another set of twins. Since twins didn't run in either of her or her husband's families, it was a surprise that no-one could have predicted. While Rachel and Rebecca had came out as the perfect pair - almost identical, joint at the hip and always looking out for each other, the same couldn't be said about Kiara and Jacob.

Billy remembered how close the younger twins were before the death of their mother but after that they stopped seeing eye to eye on most things. While there always would be a lot of love between Jacob Black and Kiara Black, it was almost easy for many on the reservation to forget they were even related from how little time they seemed to spend with each other.

Jacob had his own friend group at the school on the reservation and so did Kiara. He was friends with Quil Ateara and Embry Call - two people that Kiara gladly spent very little time around. She had no interest in their childish antics, and no interest in hanging around fixing cars all day and every day like the trio did together. Kiara instead spent her time with a different group - mostly in the years above her.

That was where her addiction to trouble started. One of the older boys in the group had taken her under his wing, while her short temper almost rivalled his. Paul Lahote was two years above her but his group of friends had not seen any issue with bringing Kiara into their friend group since it was a mix of ages anyway. They spent a lot of time making fun of Samuel Uley and his strange friendship with their old friend Jared Cameron who had quite literally dropped off the earth weeks before and suddenly turned up again with ridiculously short hair and an obviously brand-new tattoo on his shoulder that Kiara had noticed on the Uley man before.

It was all fun and games until Paul did the same. Next thing she knew, her friend Kim had stopped hanging out with them too and was now sitting at a new table that consisted of Jared, Paul and herself every lunch. The boys would walk past her in the corridor as if they were nothing more than strangers, and Paul had stopped replying to her text messages.

If Kiara Black was someone different, she'd maybe have gotten upset and confronted the boys and Kim about their sudden changes in behaviour. But she was a Black, and if her older sisters had taught her anything before they moved out of the small town, it was that she should never settle for anything but the best. So she deleted their numbers, donated their sweaters that she had borrowed to the local thrift stores and poured milk into Paul's locker.

The last thing obviously didn't go down well and was the very reason that she was sitting in silence in the passenger seat of her brother's car, trying to keep up her unbothered facade as they pulled into the drive of their small house. 

She'd been in trouble a lot, but she never expected that the school would actually expel her. Turns out Sam Uley must have had not just Paul and Jared under his weird trance, but he obviously had enough power to sway the principal to get her removed from school as she was apparently "harassing" Paul knowing that he has anger issues. She wasn't sure where that accusation came from since all she had done was put a little bit of spoilt milk in his locker on one occasion but she was aware that she was on her final straw at the school anyway.

Jacob said nothing as he got out of the car, knowing that anything he said would just be ignored by his younger sister anyway. Even though there was only seven minutes between them, he had always felt overly protective of her. Despite not wanting anything to happen to her, he was a firm believer in actions having consequences and Kiara loved finding out what consequences her actions had apparently. Besides, he knew that whatever he would say would be nothing compared to the anger that he knew was harbouring in his father since he had phoned him twenty minutes prior to inform him that Kiara had finally been expelled from the school.

She stood at the end of their drive, tightening the straps on her backpack as she heaved in a deep sigh. Kicking at the gravel with her shoes for a moment, she snapped her head upwards as the front door opened and her father's voice filled her ears. He was thanking Samuel Uley - of all people - as the man left their house, his eyes skimming over Kiara for a moment with a look that she didn't recognise before she turned her attention back to her dad.

He was scowling at her from his chair, his arms crossed as he stared long and hard at the youngest of his children. She had been the most work out of all four Black kids, never seeming to stop for one moment to calm down or consider any move she made. She was reckless, arrogant and down-right irresponsible.

Yet when Billy Black saw her lip quiver for just a second, he couldn't stay angry at her. She was his youngest, and he knew that she struggled more than Jacob at adapting to going from living with three other women to just her dad and her brother. So he opened his arms, called her forward and held her as she cried apologies to the man.

Sure, Kiara Black hated Sam Uley, most of the reservation and sometimes her twin brother, but she could never hate her father.

____

Maybe she did hate her father, Kiara thought as she tugged on the straps of her new backpack. It had been a gift from Chief Swan in some attempt to soften the blow of her new path in life she assumed. While she liked Chief Swan, she didn't like the reason for the gift.

Turns out, Sam Uley hadn't been talking to her dad about getting her back into the high school on the reservation but rather informing him that it was probably for the best that she was enrolled into the next nearest high school: Forks High School. He had sold it to Billy by informing the man that the La Push school board had no intention of letting her back after her expulsion, and promised the man that it would maybe finally give the girl a set of friends that Billy would be glad about.

It wasn't like Kiara was sad about leaving the school on the reservation, she didn't really have any close friends that she would miss seeing every day anyway, but she wasn't exactly pleased about having to bike an hour to school every morning and an hour back afterwards - especially since she was almost sure that La Push and Forks were the rainiest places to ever have existed in history. It wasn't even like she could drive instead as the only car in her family belonged to Jacob, and the truck that he had been fixing up was no-where near being drivable (although Kiara was kind of glad, she figured she would rather cycle to her new school than turn up in that hideous orange piece of scrap metal, no matter how ungrateful that made her sound).

She just hoped that the new bag that the police chief had gifted her was waterproof if she was going to keep cycling between school and La Push, especially since she had turned down the man's offer of giving her a lift every day. She knew two things about starting a new school: being the new kid sucked, and being the new kid who turned up in a police cruiser every morning would suck even more.

Her first day at school went in pretty quickly. She'd been introduced to her tour guide, Jessica Stanley, who had seemed more interested in Kiara's life outside of school than actually showing her around. The girl seemed pretty shallow and self-entered but Kiara didn't mind that, she liked the distraction from the overwhelming thought that she was disappointing her father and in turn disappointing the memory of her mother too. She'd promised Charlie that she would stop seeking trouble after the man had taken her to lunch the day before, telling her that all of the worrying she was causing Billy to do was taking a toll on his health.

So she sucked up all of Jessica's questions about her expulsion from La Push High, instead answering them all truthfully and without any hesitation. She knew girls like Jessica and she knew they loved rumours, so she assumed it was best just to get all the facts out there before they were made up for her. They shared most of their morning classes together which Kiara hated to admit she was secretly glad about, since she still had no idea where anything actually was in the school.

By the time lunch came around, Jessica had introduced her to a large group of people whom Kiara knew she wouldn't remember all of their names for at least a week. Thankfully, it seemed like there was an inner circle of the group that she had almost instantly been welcomed in to - even if she wasn't exactly chuffed about making friends with the first people she saw. 

Angela was probably the nicest out of the two girls in the group. She had seemed genuinely interested in Kiara unlike Jessica who was just looking for some gossip. Nevertheless, as soon as Jessica had realised that Kiara had no interest in any of the boys who sat with them, the claws seemed to retract a little and she seemed a little more interested in the girl's actual personality rather than the details of her arrival. Eric and Mike seemed nice, but she didn't really know what to say to them.

Regardless of how she felt about the group, she knew it was a means to an end. One year with no behavioural issues at the school was all she needed to be able to hopefully transfer back to the reservation just in time for her Senior Year, and after that she had grand plans to somehow leave Washington. One year, and she could get back to La Push High, suffer sitting with her brother and his annoying friends and then leave this place in the dust like Rachel and Rebecca had. 365 days.

"Wait, you're saying you cycled here?" Mike asked, a smile on his face as Kiara explained to them all that she did not in fact have a car like they had assumed. "Dude, that's like..."

"An hour each way?" She finished, nodding as she took a bit out of the sandwich that Jacob had left packed on the counter for her. She knew their relationship wasn't like most siblings, but the small act had brought a small smile to her face. It reminded her of what they were like before Rachel and Rebecca had left, although she didn't expect them to go back to playing in dirt puddles anytime soon. "Yeah, it sucks. But I can't afford a car and I don't want to make my brother drive me here every day. Besides, I used to run track so I have good stamina anyway so it's not too bad."

Jessica almost gaped at her words, snapping her fingers as she suddenly started exclaiming. The rest of them turned to look at her as if she was crazy, confused as to why she was so surprised.

"I KNEW I HAD SEEN YOU BEFORE!" She yelled before lowering her voice as she realised students from other tables had turned around to look at them. "You're friends with Paul Lahote, or should I say... La Hot!"

"Never say that again," Kiara muttered, everyone laughing at her disgust for the nickname before she continued correcting the Stanley girl. "I was friends with him, but we aren't anymore. I guess we just drifted apart. I'm not too fussed since these things happen but... who the hell is that?"

The table didn't even need to look up to know exactly who Kiara had suddenly shifted her attention to, knowing fine well the only family that could cause that reaction from someone. Mike peered over the youngest Black's shoulder, his eyes narrowing a little before quickly turning back around as a steely pair of eyes met his own.

"They're the Cullens," Angela said gently, the words rolling off her tongue like it was a basic fact that everyone had to know about the school. "They tend to keep to themselves."

Kiara found herself unable to look away from the family as they settled in at a table in the corner of the room, seemingly unaware of her brown eyes watching them with curiosity. She wasn't sure what it was about them that had captured her attention so quickly but she was fascinated by the strange family.

"That small one, she's Alice Cullen," Jessica started, motioning to the smallest of the group who had her arm wrapped around the bicep of the boy beside her who looked almost as stiff as the destroyed gearbox on the truck that Jacob had been fixing up. "And the boy beside her, that's Jasper Hale. They're like a couple which is like... so strange considering they're all the foster children of Doctor Carlisle Cullen and his wife but whatever."

Kiara snorted a little at that, confused about that dynamic but she nodded as Jessica continued to rattle off the names as the family took a seat at the table. They hadn't looked over at the table where the new girl and her new friends sat, but Kiara knew they must have felt her looking at them.

"Edward Cullen is next to Jasper. The bulky guy beside him is Emmett Cullent and the blonde girl beside him, that's Beverly Hale. She's Jasper's older sister and like, strangely friendly... considering her brother and sister seem to think they're above everyone else here," Jessica noted as she looked towards the other blonde girl that was sitting at the table. 

Kiara swore that she was almost taken back by how beautiful the final Hale sibling seemed to be, even from a distance. She'd always been open about her sexuality, liking both girls and guys, but she had never felt as attracted to anyone as she did with that one glance towards the blonde. She wasn't sure what it was about the entire family, but they all seemed... unreal.

She'd heard her father talk to Jacob about the Cullens with a distaste in his mouth but she had never really listened to their conversations about the family. In fact, she had only thought the family consisted of the doctor and his wife - she hadn't even realised they had six adoptive children. She wasn't sure why her father disliked them, but she couldn't help but feel like her eyes were glued to the family.

Jumping a little as Eric nudged her side and changed the conversation to the plans that they all had for the weekend, Kiara snapped out of her trance and looked back to the rest of the group. Reaching up and tying her hair into a ponytail to keep the corners from falling in front of her eyes, she laughed loudly as Mike and Eric started trying to impress the other two girls at the table. One year, she thought, just one year.

If she'd looked back over her shoulder, she'd have noticed a pair of steely golden eyes watching her every move.