A/N

So... I promised I would update and here it is. Sorry about the wait.

I still don't own anything.

I let out a groan and raised a hand to run through my hair, tugging slightly, that was just what I needed, now I had even more explaining to do, I wonder how much they had seen, this was sure to be fun.

Slowly, I moved away from the fire, careful not to move any closer to the boys, I probably seemed quite threatening at the moment , my back was facing them, and there was no way I was going to acknowledge them, maybe if I stood still and silent they would go away, nope, that's not going to happen.

I took a smoke from the pack in my back pocket, it looked a bit worse for wear and was beyond squashed, I attempted straightening it out but gave up and just stuck it in my mouth. I patted my pockets, front and back and sighed as I realised I didn't have a lighter, one thing I would always be good at, losing fucking lighters.

I was beyond frustrated and all I felt like doing was throwing my head back and screaming up to the sky, I almost gave in to temptation and did, when I felt a hand come down on my shoulder, I yelped and turned around, ready to throw myself into a defensive crouch. I calmed almost instantly when I noticed that it was only Paul that was standing in front of me, he was holding his lighter out to me, and I was shocked to see that his features held no hint of the smile that I had come to think of as permanent for Paul, I attempted to smile softly in thanks, but I am sure it came out looking more like a grimace than anything else, I probably looked like i had just shit in my pants, always a good look.

I took the lighter and lit my smoke, I held it out to him again and started to say thanks, but my words got caught in my throat as his hand moved past the lighter and softly landed on the side of my face, my eyes slid closed as the pad of his thumb touched just below the corner of my eye, my eyes slowly opened again as his thumb slid down my cheek. He was frowning as he pulled his hand back from my face, and I am sure I ended up making the same face as he was when I noticed the wetness on the pad of his thumb.

I quickly raised my hands and swiped away the tears that were staining my cheeks. When the fuck had I started crying? And how the hell had I not noticed.

I huffed and turned away from Paul, I plonked my ass down onto the cooling sand and took a long draw of my smoke, I shook my head and exhaled with yet another groan, I felt fucking pathetic, hating the fact that he had seen me crying.

I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, which was strange, I wasn't cold, cold was something I only felt when the temperature was extremely low, my skin being tougher meant weather was less likely to bother me, but it seemed that some of my human habits had stuck with me. I almost jumped when suddenly a warm black jacket, that I knew belonged to Paul, was being draped over my shoulders. I knew, as I watched Paul lower himself to the sand beside me that I must have been frowning at him. He said nothing, but reached over and threw his arm around me, pulling me into his side. I was shocked and beyond confused, though that didn't stop me from letting out a sigh and leaning my head on his shoulder.

"You ok, babe?" I smiled in spite of myself when he used that god awful pet name, but it didn't take long for the smile to disappear. What the fuck was going on here, why was he acting like this. Only hours before they had all stood there as I tried to tell them about Star, and now he had just witnessed me burn a body, I didn't know how long they had been there, or how much they had seen, but he sure as fuck saw that leg going into the flames, that was definitely enough to get some kind of reaction from him, and this definitely was not the way if expected him to be behaving.

"Honestly Paul? No, I am not ok, though I'm sure that shit was pretty obvious." Right now probably wasn't the best time for my sarcasm to make an appearance, but I was feeling pretty damn awkward.

Paul didn't respond to me, just pulled me even closer, I sighed and turned my head towards him, the awkward angle making it hard to see anything but his neck and jaw.

I'm not sure why I was so comfortable around Paul, or when my brain had decided that I was attracted to him, at the moment I didn't give a fuck, but it didn't matter, I had a feeling that once the boys knew what I had done, I would have to leave, and probably pretty swiftly.

"I don't know what to say." I felt like an idiot the moment those words came out, but I couldn't take them back now. I was so confused, part of me didn't want any of them to find out what I had done. I should have just kept my mouth shut, not mentioned anything about Star, then everything would be fine, well not fine, because I had just torn apart a vampire.

Maybe I could just lie to them, I could say that I had seen Star the night she went missing, that I had seen some guy dragging her away, but did I want to lie? Part of me wanted to be truthful, tell them what I had done, but doing that would either make me out to be some kind of insane murderer, which I can't deny isn't true anyway, or they would know my secret. I didn't know if they were supposed to know, I couldn't remember what Alice had said, my mind was a jumbled mess of shit now. I could do with some help from Alice right now, just some kind of text telling me what to do or something, even a quick phone call telling me that everything was ok. I mean, if one of Maria's vamps had found me, then surely they were already with the Cullen's, was everyone ok? What the fuck was happening?

I hadn't even given that a thought, this had always been about my own survival, and being pissed off that they had shipped me off somewhere. I didn't even think about the fact that the rest of them were also in danger. After all the play fights I had with Jasper, I knew what he was capable of, he had spent hours sitting sharing some of his experiences from when he was with Maria, we would disappear somewhere for a day, Jasper would hunt, and then we would sit and talk, away from the rest of the family.

Jasper still wasn't comfortable with everyone knowing what had happened in his past, they all knew little bits and pieces, but not the details that I knew. Alice of course knew more than anyone, and occasionally Jasper would slip and Edward would catch small glimpses of the carnage from his mind, but he tried to keep it from everyone else, he didn't want Carlisle and Esme, who he had come to think of as parents over the years, to know just how bad he had been in his life before them. And it was bad, when we had figured out that I could tap into the powers of those around me, Jasper had let me into his mind, it had been awful, but I had sat and watched his memories with him, he had chosen to let me into his past, to show me what he had been through, a privilege that so few had been given, I couldn't judge him on what had happened, but those memories were awful, and for weeks I couldn't get them out of my head, I had watched as Jasper and many other vampires, a mixture of men and woman had gone out at nights and taken people, and forced them into a life of fighting and killing. Sometimes, they had treated it like a game, men and women would divide up into teams against each other, to see how many people they could lure away, they would go after the opposite sex, using their good looks, charm, that amazing scent, to lure them away.

They would never kill them straight away, usually they would knock them out and leave them in a designated hidden area, so that at the end of the night, they could tally up their scores before taking them underground to where Maria's den was. They would dump the out cold humans into one room while they gathered all of their conquests, and then the feast would begin, some of the victims would still be unconscious, but usually, most of them had awoken by that time.

From what I had seen, Jasper would always feed on these humans, but not in the way the others would. Jasper would drain one or two, obviously leaving them alive just enough for the transformation to begin, But the others, it was sick what they did to the people. If it had been a big catch that night, sometimes, they would create little games, make the humans fight each other, telling them that the winner would go free, this was always a lie though, and the victims that they had deemed too weak for what they were needed for, the ones that they felt were just too timid or would not be up to the job, they were left in the room.

They would torture the poor humans before draining them and leaving them all in one room to live through the pain of the transformation. The noises from that room could always be heard, no matter where you were, no matter what part of the underground base you were in, vampire hearing made sure that for three days, sometimes longer, you would hear the crying from the humans that had been left in there to watch this room full of people go through these days of hell, and the screams, if these vampires had not already been insane, listening to that would surely have made them so, those screams of agony as the venom made its way through their poor bodies, bloodcurdling screams, and eventually it would stop, and they would awaken, new vampires in the world.

That was when the weak humans came into things, those newborns would awaken with this uncontrollable thirst that just needed to be taken care of, they had learned over the years that when the thirst became that unbearable, the newborns would just start killing each other, unable to handle it. So those humans were left in the room, the newborns would awake and instantly they would pounce, the thirst would take over, and they wouldn't know what it meant, but they would soon find out, it was usually messy, newborns not knowing the best way to drink from someone, not realising how powerful they now were, it would end with body parts everywhere, blood coating the walls and ceilings, newborns huddled around, fearful of each other and not understanding what was happening. Not quite understanding why they had just killed, scared of how good that blood had felt as it coated their burning throats, but the thirst would never be satisfied, that burning would always be there.

That was where jasper would come back into play, it was now his job to train the newborns, to turn them into fighters, prepare them to be a part of Maria's army.

From what I had seen, and from what Jasper had told me, he was the best at training them, when he had first been turned, Maria had taken him under her wing and taught him everything he needed to know, between that and everything he had learned during his days in the army in his human life, Jasper was lethal, and he was the best at creating newborns to be as lethal as he could be.

If Maria's army was anything like it once was, then I was beyond worried about what could possibly be happening to my family right now, I didn't know what Maria wanted, why after all this time was she suddenly interested, had she heard that Jasper was still out there, did she want him back, I knew that she had been quite obsessed with jasper when she had him, and she seemed like the kind of person that would do anything she could to get what she wanted. But where did I fit in to all of this? Why did I have to hide, and why had she sent someone after me?

"You know Babe, it was kinda hot, watching you tear that chick apart like that." Paul's voice shook me out of my musings, did he just say it was hot? That was not what I was expecting to hear from him, he watched me kill someone, and then tells me that it was hot? How the fuck did that make any sense.

"Hot? Really Paul? I killed someone, I tore them limb from limb and threw the pieces into a fire, and you say that?" Paul laughed, though I didn't see what was funny about what I had just said.

"What were you expecting me to say Babe?" I felt his hand slowly start rubbing up and down my back, underneath the jacket as he said this. Normally, a gesture like that would comfort someone, sooth them, maybe make them feel better, but it only served to irritate me.

"I don't know, not that! Most people would be a little freaked out right now! Hell, you could have asked me why the fuck I did it!" He was being weird, laughing at me, I knew there was something off about the boys, and Alice had said as much, but still, this was an odd reaction from anyone. And I was sick of not understanding.

"Fine, what happened, why did you do it Babe?" That annoyed me, the bored tone he used when he asked me, like he didn't care, almost like he was amused, I was more than irritated now, and they way he said it, bored tone and eyes filled with amusement just pissed me off, and I snapped.

"She was sent to get me Paul, she was sent here to catch me and take me somewhere where I probably would have been killed, actually, I'm almost certain that I would have been killed, so I got her first, I killed her, and I don't even regret it, it felt good, it felt so fucking good killing her like that, taking out all of my frustration on her, seeing that look on her face right before I pulled her fucking head off, and I'd do it again." I had pushed myself away from him and stood up by this point, thank fuck there was no one around, I'm sure my voice had been much louder than it needed to be, I was practically shouting by the time I got to the end of my little rant.

I was standing right in front of Paul, right in his face, I hadn't noticed the low growl coming from me, I'm sure I looked insane right now. Once again he did the unexpected, his hands landed on either side of my face, and he kissed me, I stood there frozen in shock, I really hadn't expected that, his lips were warm and soft against my own, and after a few seconds I melted into him and kissed back, lifting one had to grab onto the front of his shirt, the other wandered up the nape of his neck to tangle into that messy, and probably dirty hair. I'm sure a quiet moan escaped me when his tongue swiped at my bottom lip, asking for entry, and his arm wound its way around my waist to pull me closer, the moan caused Paul to smile into the kiss, and that was all it took to bring me back to my senses.

Now was definitely not the time for this, I had to sort my shit out, maybe try and contact Alice, though I knew that was probably going to be next to impossible, I pulled away from the kiss and removed my hand from his hair, though I left my other hand holding on to his shirt.

"Sorry, but now just doesn't seem like the time to be fucking around with someone." That massive grin had made a re-appearance.

"I get it Babe!" Hearing him use the word babe once again annoyed me, but before I could even attempt to once again tell him off for the sickening pet name, he had pulled me back into his arms, catching me off guard and making me stumble slightly. His grip on me managed to stop us both from being knocked to the ground though.

"It's getting late, or early, depending on how you look at it." I spoke into his chest, "I should probably be getting to the hotel soon, it's been quite a stressful night." I didn't make a move to walk away from him though, I stayed there leaning against him, with his arms around me and his cheek pressed to the top of my head.

"Yeah Babe, I should head too, I'll walk you though yeah?" He pulled away from me as he said this, though swung one arm over my shoulders and stuck his other hand in my back pocket to steal my packet of smokes, I raised an eyebrow at him as he took one and lit it, but soon smiled as he handed it to me and took another out for himself, normally I would complain that he didn't even ask me for one, but I didn't even have a lighter, an without his, I wouldn't be smoking. I grabbed the packet back from him and glared as I shoved it back in my pocket.

"Yeah, I suppose you can walk with me." I flicked the ash from my smoke and made to start walking, Paul stopped me by grabbing my hand and entwining our fingers, he smiled at me and started walking, pulling me along with him.

"So, how much did you all see? I mean, where did the others run off too?" I hesitantly asked, not looking at him as I spoke.

"Oh we saw it all Babe, followed you after you ran out on us. Pretty shit hot little fighter you are. The other went off to h... grab something to eat." I noticed his pause as he told me they went off to eat, but I didn't question him; he hadn't questioned me at all.

"Yeah, shit hot, that's what I am. They didn't have anything to say about what they had just seen? I mean, I know I would have." I threw my smoke to the ground and paused to step on it before carrying on.

"Sure wasn't what we thought we were going to see when we followed you, but who are we to judge?" He laughed as he said this and I frowned as I listened.

"What do you mean, who are you to judge?" His laughter stopped abruptly and his expression turned to shock as he realised what he had just said, he coughed and threw the remains of his smoke away, obviously not paying attention to where he was throwing it, it narrowly missed hitting a young guy that was passed out on the boardwalk, he was snoring rather loudly, and going by the empty bottle next to him, I guessed it was alcohol that had left him in that state. Such a wonderful place Santa Carla is.

"Doesn't matter." Paul said, giving me no explanation at all, he just carried on walking, hand still holding on to mine and dragging me behind him. It was then that I noticed where we were.

"Hey! How the fuck do you know that this is where I am staying?" We were now at the door of the hotel, though he didn't stop there, pulling me through the rickety doors and passed the check in desk, though it was really just an old table.

"I have my ways of knowing things Babe." He was now pulling me up the stairs, right towards my room, how the hell did he know what room I was staying in, had he been watching me? He pulled me right to the door of my room and stood there grinning, as if he was proud, like I should be thrilled that he knew exactly where I was staying.

"That's a bit creepy Paul, that you know what room I'm in, you know that right?" He only laughed at me and nodded his head, though didn't tell me how the fuck he knew, and it didn't seem like he was going to tell me.

"I'm not inviting you in Paul." His smile dropped slightly, but that didn't last for long, he grabbed me and pulled me in for a hug.

"I gotta go anyway. Suns coming up soon, everyone will be wondering where I am. You know, you smell good enough to eat babe." I laughed at him then, it amused me, though I knew that it was probably only that wonderful scent that came with vampires, mine though not as strong as any other vampires alluring scent, was still pretty sweet.

I pushed up onto my toes and buried my nose in the side of his neck and took a deep breath, ready to tell him that he too smelled delicious. As soon as my nose touched his neck, I noticed something was off. My eyes widened and I jumped away from him. How had I not noticed that before, it made no sense. I listened closely, for that noise that had tempted me every day since my change, the steady beat of a human heart. There was none.

"What the fuck are you?"

Three years and I leave you with a cliffie. Ain't I nice.