Saria: I love Bree, and I love Jasper. Normally I'd have him paired with Bella but I was inspired by the interaction between Jasper and Bree at the end of "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner". This story takes place at the end of the Eclipse novel and hopefully a bit through Breaking Dawn. No guarantees though :]

I assume most people who read this have read Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and know who the hell Diego is and the backstory with Fred, cause Imma use that bit in the future ;] If not, read it, or you'll be thouroughly confused-ed. I "copy/pasted" this first chapter then altered as I saw fit for the sort of "preface" thing so it's definitely close to canon, but I'm not doing that for the rest of the story. I just need a starting point (ie. consider this the diving board for the pool of this story) The chapters after this will probably be much shorter, though I'll try not to let them shrink.

Disclaimer: Don't own or claim.

My eyes raked the field. There were pieces of vampire everywhere, and a huge bonfire smoking purple into the sunny sky. I could see glittering bodies dart about and as the sounds of vampires being torn apart rang out.

I looked for one thing: Diego's curly black hair. No one I could see had hair so dark. There was one huge vampire with brown hair that was almost black, but he was too big, too muscular, and as I focused I watched him tear Kevin's head off and pitch it into the fire before leaping on someone else's back. Was that Jen? There was another with straight black hair that was too small to be Diego. That one was moving so fast I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl.

I scanned quickly again, feeling horribly exposed. Most of the vampires still standing were strangers. A blond one glanced at me, meeting my gaze, and his eyes flashed gold in the sunlight.

We were losing. Bad.

I started backing toward the trees, not moving fast enough. I turned and really ran for the forest. I made it a few feet when a force like a wrecking ball hit me from behind and threw me to the ground. An arm slipped under my chin, obviously preparing to snap my head off.

"Please!" I sobbed.

The arm hesitated. I didn't fight back. Even if I'd had a way to beat this one, I wouldn't have been able to move. Diego was gone, and that glaring fact killed the fight in me.

Suddenly I was airborn, I could hear the wind rushing by my ears and I crashed into a tree then crumpled to the ground. I should have tried to run, but Diego was dead, and I just couldn't get around that.

The blond vampire from the clearing was staring intently at me, his body ready to spring. He looked very capable, but he wasn't lunging at me. He was totally in control.

"Please," I said again, wanting him to get this over with. "I don't want to fight."

Though he still held himself ready, his face changed. He looked at me in a way I didn't totally understand. There was a lot of knowledge in that face,and something else. Empathy? Pity, at least.

"Neither do I," He stated in a calm, kind voice. "We are only defending ourselves."

There was such honesty in his odd amber eye that it made me wonder how I had ever believed any of Riley's stories. I felt guilty. How could I trust anything I'd been told?

"We didn't know," I mumbled, somehow ashamed that I'd been tricked so easily. "Riley must've lied. I'm sorry."

He listened, just for a moment, and I realized that the battlefield was quiet. It was already over.

If I'd been in any doubt over who the winner was, that doubt dispersed when, a second later, a female vampire with wavy brown hair and golden eyes hurried to his side.

"Carlisle?" she asked in a confused voice, staring at me.

"She didn't want to fight," He told her.

The woman touched his arm. He was still tensed to spring. "She's so frightened, Carlisle. Couldn't we..."

The blonde, Carlisle, glanced back at her, and then he straightened up a little, though I could see he was still weary.

"We have no wish to harm you," The woman said to me. She had a soft, soothing voice. "We didn't want to fight any of you."

"I'm sorry," I whispered again. "I'm so sorry."

I couldn't make sense of the mess in my head. Diego was dead, that was the main thing, the devistating thing. Other than that, the fight was over, my coven had lost and my enemies had won. But my dead coven was full of people who would have loved to watch me burn, and my enemies were speaking to me kindly when they had no reason to. Moreover, I felt safer with these two strangers that I'd ever felt with Raoul and Kristie. I was relieved that Raoul and Kristie were dead. It was so confusing.

"Child," Carlisle said. "Will you surrender to us? If you do not try to harm us, we promise we will not harm you."

And I believed him.

I nodded my head. "Yes, I surrender. I don't want to hurt anybody."

"He held out his hand encouragingly. "Come, child. Let our family regroup for a moment, then we'll have some questions for you. If you answer honestly, you have nothing to fear."

I got up slowely, making no movements that could be considered threatening.

"Carlisle?" a male voice called.

And then another yellow eyed vampire joined us. Any sort of safety I'd felt with these strangers vanished as soon as I saw him.

He was blond, like the first, but taller and leaner. His skin was absolutely covered in scars, spaced most thickly together on his neck and jaw. A few small marks on his arm were fresh, but the rest were not from the brawl today. He had been in more fights than I could have imagined, and He'd never lost. His tawny eyes blazed and his stance exuded the barely contained voilence of an angry lion.

As soon as he saw me he coiled to spring.

"Jasper!" Carlisle warned

Jasper pulled up short and stared at Carlisle with wide eyes. "What's going on?"

"She doesn't want to fight. She's surrendered."

The scarred vampire's brow clouded, and suddenly I felt an unexpected surge of frustration, though I had no idea what I was frustrated with.

"Carlisle, I..." He hesitated, then continued, "I'm sorry, but that can't be possible. We can't have any newborns associated with us when the Vulturi come. Do you realize the danger that would put us in?"

"I didn't understand exactly what he was saying, but I got the jist of it. He wanted to kill me.

"Jasper, she's only a child," The woman protested. "We can't just murder her in cold blood."

It was strange to hear her speak like we both were people, like murder was a bad thing. An avoidable thing.

"It's our family on the line here, Esme. We can't afford to have them think we broke this rule."

The woman, Esme, walked between me and the one who wanted to kill me. Incomprehensibly, she turned her back to me.

"No, I won't stand for it."

Carlisle shot me an anxious glance. I could see that he cared alot for this woman. I would have looked the same way at anyone behind Diego's back. "Jasper, I think we have to take the chance," he said slowly. "We are not the Volturi. We follow their rules, but we do not take lives lightly."

"They might think we created our own newborns in defense."

"But we didn't. And even had we, there was no indescretion here, only in Seattle. There is no law against creating vampires if you control them."

"This is too dangerous."

Carlisle touched Jaspers shoulder tentatively. "Jasper. We cannot kill this child."

Jasper glowered at the man with kind eyes, and I was suddenly angry. Surely he wouldn't hurt this gentle vampire or the woman he loved. Then Jasper sighed, and I knew it was okay. My anger evaporated.

"I don't like this," he said, but he was calmer. "At least let me two take charge of her. You two don't know how to deal with someone who's been running wild so long." Annoyance coursed through my body. Running wild? I never ran wild!

"Of course, Jasper," the woman said. "But please be kind."

Jasper rolled his eyes. "We need to be with the others. Alice said we don't have long."

Carlisle nodded. He held his hand out to Esme and they headed past Jasper back toward the open field.

"You there," Jasper said to me, his face a glower again. "Come with us. Don't make one rash move or I will take you down." He gripped my arm suddenly, and I jumped, feeling a shock run down my spine. His eyes widened and he stared down at me, then he retreated back to a glower, as if it were my fault he'd rubbed his feet on too much carpet.

I felt angry again as he glared at me, and a small part of me wanted to snarl and show my teeth, but I had a feeling he was looking for just that kind of excuse to get rid of me.

Jasper paused as if he'd just thought of something. "Close your eyes," he commanded, letting go of my arm.

I hesitated. Had he decided to kill me after all?

"Do it!"

I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes. I felt twice as helpless as I had before.

"Follow the sound of my voice and don't open your eyes. You look, you lose, got it?"

I nodded, wondering what he didn't want me to see. I felt some relief that he was bothering to protect a secret. There was no reason to do so if he was just going to kill me.

"This way."

I walked slowely after him, careful to give him no excuses. He was considerate in the was he led, not walking me into any trees at least. I could hear the way the sound changed when we were in the open; the feel of the wind was different, too, and the small of my coven burning was stronger. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the insides of my eyelids were brighter as I sparkled.

He led me closer and closer to the muffled crackle of the flames, so close that I could feel the smoke brush my skin. I knew he could have killed me at any time, but the nearness of the fire still made me more nervous.

"Sit here. Eyes closed."

The ground was warm from the sun and the fire. I kept very still and tried to concentrate on looking harmless, but I could still feel his glare on me, and it made me agitated. Though I was not mad at these vampires, who I truly believed had only been defending themselves, I felt the oddest stirring of fury. It was almost outside myself, as if it were some leftover echo from the battle that had just taken place.

The anger didn't make me stupid, though, because I was too sad- miserable to my core. Diego was still in my mind and I couldn't help thinking about how he must have died.

In my head, I saw Riley's face again- that smooth, cold expression that had formed as he'd threatened to punish and of us who wouldn't behave. I heard again his macabre and oddly detailed description: "When I take you to her and hold you as she tears off your legs and then slowly burns of your fingers, ears, lips, tongue, and any other superfluous appendage you may have one by one.

I realized now that I'd been hearing the description of Diego's death.

I felt sick. I wanted the sound of Diego screaming in agony out of my head, but it wouldn't leave.

No, that wasn't Diego. There was screaming in the field.

I flinched and my eyelids fluttered, but Jasper snarled furiously and I clenched them together at once. I'd seen nothing but the heavy lavender smoke. I heard shouting and a strange, savage housing. It was loud, and there was a lot of it. I couldn't imagine how a face would have to contort to creat such a noise, and the not knowing made the sound more frightening. These yellow-eyed vampires were so different from the rest of us. Or different from me, I guess, since I was the only one left. Riley and our creator were long gone by now.

I heard names called, Jacob, Leah, Sam. There were lots of distince voices, though the howls continued. Of course Riley had lied to us about the number of vampires here, too.

The sound of howling tapered off until it was just one voice, one agonized, inhuman yowling that made me grit my teeth. I could see Diego's face so clearly in my mind, and the sound was like him screaming.

I heard Carlisle talking over the other voices and howling. He was begging to look at something. "Please let me take a look. Please let me help." I didn't hear anyone arguing with him, but for some reason his tone made it sound like he was losing the dispute.

And then the yowling reached a strident new pitch, and suddenly he was saying "thank you" in a fervent voice, and under the yowl there was the sound of a lot of movement by alot of bodies. Many heavy footsteps coming closer.

I listened harder and heard something unexpected and impossible. There wer dozens of deep thumping noises. Almost like heartbeats, but definitly not human hearts. I knew that particular sound very well. I sniffed hard, but the wind was blowing from the other direction, and I could only smell the smoke.

Without a warning sound, something touched me, clapped down firmly on either side of my head.

My eyes started open in panic as I lurched up, straining to jerk free of this hold, and instantly met Jasper's warning gaze about two inches from my face.

"Stop it," he snapped, yanking me back down on my butt. I could only hear him, and I realized that his hands were sealed tight against my head, covering my ears entirely. I stared into his golded irises, frozen in fear. If it's had a heart, it would have been pounding out of my chest.

"Close your eyes," He instructed again, probably at a normal volume, but it was still hushed for me.

I struggled to calm myself and shut my eyes again. There were things they didn't want me to hear, either. I could live with that, if it meant I could live.

I could still hear some of what was going on, but just the howling and a few voices. Whatever those weird thumping sounds had been, they were too muted for me to examine them now.

I did make out the words when, a few minutes later, Carlisle said, "You have to..." his voice was too low for a second, and then, "...from here now. If we could help we would, but we cannot leave."

There was a growl, but it was oddly unmenacing. The yowling became a low whine that disappeared slowly, as if it was moving away from me.

It was quiet for a few moments. I heard some low voices, Carlisle and Esme among them, but also some I didn't know. I wished I could small something; the blindness combined with the muted sound left me straining for some sourse of sensory information, but all I could smell was the horrible sweet smoke.

There was one voice, higher and clearer that the others that I could hear most easily.

"Another five minutes," I heard whoever it was say. I was sure it was a girl who was speaking. "And bella will open her eyes in thirty-seven seconds. I wouldnt doubt that she can hear us now."

I tried to make sense of this. Was someone else being forced to keep their eyes shut, like me? Or did she think my name was Bella? I hadn't told anyone my name. I struggled again to smell something.

More mumbling. I thought that one voice sounded off. There was no ring to it at all, but I couldn't be sure with Jasper's hands so securely over my ears.

"Three minutes," The high, clear voice said.

Jasper's hands left my head, and I found myself missing the contact as the wind brushed my ears, even though I was relieved to be able to hear again.

"You'd better open your eyes now," He told me from a few steps away. The way he said this frightened me. I looked around myself quickly, searching for the danger hinted in his tone.

One whole field of my vision was obscured by the dark smoke. Close by, Jasper was frowning. His teeth were gritted and he was looking at me with an expression that was almost frightened. Not like he was scared for me, or of me, but like he was scared because of me. I remembered what he's said earlier, about my putting them all in danger with something called the Volturi. I wondered what the Volturi was. I couldn't imagine what this scarred-up vampire would be afraid of.

Behind Jasper, four other vampired were spaced out in a loose line with their backs to me. One was Esme. With her were two other females, a tall blonde woman and a tiny black haired girl. There was a dark-haired vampire so big that he was scary to look at. He was the one I'd seen kill Kevin. For an instant I imagined that vampire getting a hold on Raoul. It was a strangely pleasent picture.

There were three others behind the big one. I couldn't see exactly what they were doing with him in the way. Carlisle was kneeling on the ground. Next to him was a male vampire with dark red hair. Lying flat on the ground was another figure, but I couldn't see much of that one, only jeans and small brown boots. It was either a female or a young male. I wondered if they were putting the vampire back together.

Suddenly the vampire on the ground started to get slowly to her feet, moving awkwardly, almost like she was some clumsy human.

Suddenly the breeze shifted and I could smell everything.

Jasper hissed at me furiously and shoved me out of my crouch and back onto the ground, gripping my shoulders with a force this would've snapped my clavicles had I been human. Hell, he could probably break then even now.

It was her, the human I'd been hunting not to long ago. The scent my whole body had been focused toward. The sweet, wet scent of the most delicious blood I'd ever tracked. My mouth and throught felt like they were on fire.

The human named Bella stared at me with stunned brown eyes. Looking at her made it worse. I could see the blood flushing through her thin skin. I tried to look anywhere else, but my eyes kept circling back to her.

The redhead spoke to her in a low voice. "She surrendered. That's one I've never seen before. Only Carlisle would think of offering. Jasper doesn't approve." I nearly scoffed at the understatement, but I was too focused on the human girl.

Carlisle must have explained to that one when my ears were covered.

"Is Jasper all right?" the human whispered.

"He's fine. The wenom stings," The vampire said.

"He was bitten?" she asked, sounding shocked by the idea.

Who was this girl? She had her hands pressed against the redhead's chest, and if she's been a vampire, I would have guessed they were together. Why did these vampires allow her to be with them? She looked so comfortable with them. Why wasn't she scared? She seemed like she was part of this world, and yet she didn't understand it's realities. Of course Jasper was bitten. He's just fought, and destroyed, my entire coven. Did this girl even know what we were?

"He was trying to be everywhere at once," The redhead spoke to the human. "Trying to make sure Alice had nothing to do, actually." He shook his head.

"Overprotective fool," Alice's clear soprano voice range through the field. Jasper met her stare with a half smile, seeming to forget that I existed.

I could barely fight the instinct that wanted me to make use of his lapse and spring at the human girl, but the vampire with the dark red hair met my eyes with a fierce warning glare. I knew I would die if I tried for the girl.

Jasper turned his attention back to me and snarled. I had never tried to stop myself from feeding before. I dug my hands into the ground, looking for something to hold on to but finding nothing. Jasper leaned into a crouch, and even knowing I was two seconds from death, I couldn't focus my thirsty thoughts.

And then Carlisle was right there, his hand on Jasper's arm. He looked at me with kind, calm eyes. "Have you changed your mind, young one?" he asked me. "We don't want to destroy you, but we will if you can't control yourself."

"How can you stand it?" I asked him and just him, almost begging. He had to be burning too. Wasn't he? "I Want her." I stared at the human in question, desperately wishing the distance between us was gone. My fingers raked uselessly through the rocky dirt.

"You must stand it," Carlisle replied solemnly. "You must exercise control. It is possible, and it is the only thing that will save you now."

If being able to tolerate the human was my only hope for survival, then I was already doomed. I didn't want to die, I didn't want pain, but what was the point? Everyone else was dead. Diego had been dead for days.

His name was right on my lips. I almost whispered it aloud. I gripped my skull and tried to think about something that wouldn't hurt. Not the girl, and not Diego. It didn't work very well.

"Shouldn't we move away from her?" The human whispered roughly, breaking my concentration.

"We have to stay here," said the vampire she was clinging to. "They are coming to the north end of the clearing now."

He must be talking about the mysterious Volturi.

Carlisle began to back away from the fire, and me, closing ranks with the others. They were all staring past me into the smoke, so whatever they were afraid of was closer to me than it was to them. I huddled tighter to Jasper in spite of the threat he imposed.

"Hmmm" It took just that one syllable and I knew exactly who it was. If I hadn't already been frozen solid with mindless terror, I would have bolted.

It was the dark cloaks.

The cloaked vampires ghosted through the vapor to face the yellow-eyes. None of them so much as glanced in my direction.

There were four of them, same as last time.

"Welcome, Jane," The yellow-eyed one holding the human greeted.

They knew eachother, but the redhead's voice was not friendly. On the contrary, it was cold and polite. So these were the Volturi?

The small vampire who led them, Jane I assume, scanned the vampires behind me and their human pet, then finally turned her head to me.

"I don't understand." Her dead voice betrayed a hint of annoyance.

"She surrendered." The redhead explained.

"Surrendered?" Jane snapped.

I peeked to see the dark-cloaks exchanging glanced. The redhead has said he had never seen anyone surrender before. Maybe they hadn't either.

"Carlisle gave her the option," The redhead said. He seemed to be the spokeperson for his coven, though Carlisle appeared to be the leader.

"There are no options for those who break the rules." Jane's voice was dead again.

My bones felt like ice, though I wasn't panicked anymore. It all seemed inevitable now.

Carlisle answered Jane in a soft voice. "That's in your eyes. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, I saw no need to destroy her. She was never taught."

"Though his words were neutral, I almost thought he was pleading for me. But, as he said, my fate was not up to him.

"That is irrelivant," Jane confirmed.

"As you wish."

"Aro hoped that we would make it far enough west to see you Carlisle," she said. "He sends his reguards."

"I would appreciate it if you would convey mine to him

Jane smiled. "Of course." She looked at me again, the corners of her mouth still slightly holding the smile. "I appears that you've done our work for us today... for the most part. Just out of professional curiousity, how many were there? They left quite a wake of destruction in Seattle."

Carlisle was the one to answer her question. "Eighteen, including this one."

There was a barely audible murmur among the four cloaked vampires.

"Eighteen?" Jane repeated, a note of surprise in her voice.

"All brand new," Carlisle said. "They were unskilled."

Unskilled and uninformed. Newborn, Jasper had called me. Like a baby.

"All?" Jane snapped. "Then who was their creator?"

I grit my teeth. As if they hadn't already been introduced. This Jane was a bigger liar than Riley.

"Her name was Victoria." The redhead answered.

How did he know when even I didn't? I remembered Riley saying something about a mind-reader in their group. Is that how? or was it just another one of Riley's lies?

"Was?" Jane asked.

The redhead jerked his head toward the east like he was pointing. I looked up and saw a cloud of thick Lilac smoke billowing from the side of the mountain.

Was. I felt a similar kind of pleasure to what I'd felt imagining the big vampire shredding Raoul. Only much, much greater.

"The Victoria," Jane asked slowly. "She was in addition to the eighteen here?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "She had only one other with her. He was not as young as this one here, but no older than a year."

Riley. My fierce pleasure intesified. If -ok, when- I died today, at least I didn't have to leave that loose thread. Diego had been avenged. I almost smiled.

"Twenty" Jane breathed. "Who dealt with the creator."

"I did," the redhead replied coldly.

Whoever this vampire was, whether he kept a pet human or no, he was a friend of mine. Even if he were the one to kill me in the end, I would still owe him.

Jane turned to stare at me with narrowed eyes.

"You there," she snarled. "Your name."

I was dead anyway, at least according to her, so why give this lying vampire anything she wanted? I just glared at her.

Jane smiled at me, the bright happy smile of an innocent child, and suddenly I was on fire. It was like I'd gone back in time to the worst night of my life. It felt like I was buried in the middle of my coven's funeral bonfire, with flames on every side. I could barely hear myself scream over the pain I felt in my ears.

"Your name." Jane said again, and as she spoke the fire disappeared. Gone like that, as if I'd only imagined it.

"Bree," I said as fast as I could, still gasping though the pain wasn't there anymore.

Jane smiled again and the fire was everywhere. How much pain would it take before I would die of it. Why wouldn't someone rip my head off? Carlisle was kind enough for that, wasn't he? Or whoever their mind reader was. Couldn't he or she understand and make this stop?

"She'll tell you anything you want to know," the redhead growled. "You don't have to do that."

The pain vanished again, like Jain had turned off the a light switch. I found myself facedown on the ground, panting as if I actually needed air.

"Oh, I know," I heard Jane say cheerfully. "Bree?"

I shuddered when she called my name, but the pain didn't start again.

"Is his story true?" She asked me. "Were there twenty of you?"

The words flew out of my mouth. "Nineteen or twenty, maybe more, I don't know! Sara and the one who's name I don't know got in a fight on the way..."

I waited for the pain to punish me for not having a better answer, but instead Jane spoke again.

"And this Victoria, did she create you?"

"I don't know," I admitted fearfully. "Riley never said her name, and I didn't see that night... It hurt." I flinched. "He didn't want us to be able to think of her. He said our thoughts weren't safe."

Jane shot a glance at the redhead, then looked at me again.

"Tell me about Riley," Jane said. "Why did he bring you hear?"

I recited Riley's lies as quickly as I could.

"It looks like Riley was wrong about the easy part," Jane said, a hint of teasing in her voice.

It seemed like Jane was pleased with my story. In a flash of insight, I understood that she was relieved Riley hadn't told me or the others about her little visit to our creator. Victoria. This was the story she wanted the yellow-eyes to know, the story that didn't implicate Jane or the dark-cloaked Volturi. Well, I could play along. Hopefully, the mind reader was already in the know. Though I couldn't physically take revenge, I could tell them everything I know with my thoughts. I hoped.

I nodded agreeing with Jane's little joke, and I sat up because I wanted the mind reader's attention, whoever that was.

"I don't know what happened." That part was true. The mess on the battle field was still a mystery. "We split up, but the others never came, and Riley left us, and he didn't come to help like he promised, and then it was so confusing, and everybody was in pieces." I flinched at the memory of the torso I'd hurdled. "I was afraid. I wanted to run away." I nodded at Carlisle. "That one said they wouldn't hurt me if I stopped fighting."

"Ah, but that wasn't his gift to affer, young one," Jane said. She sounded like she was enjoying herself. "Broken rules demand a consequence." She turned to Carlisle. "Are you sure you got them all? The other half that split up?"

"We split up too."

"I can't deny that I'm impressed," Jane said, sounding sincere.

"Yes," The three vampires behind her agreed.

"I've never seen a coven escape this magnitude of offensive intact," Jane continued. "Do you know what was behind it? It seems like extreme behavior, considering the way you live here. and why was the girl the key?"

"Victoria held a grudge against Bella," The redhead told her.

So the strategy finally made sense. Riley just wanted the girl dead, no matter how many of us died to get it done.

Jane laughed happily. "This one" and she smiled at the human the way she'd smiled at me. "seems to bring out bizarrely strong reaction in our kind."

Nothing happened to the girl. Maybe Jane didn't want to hurt her, or maybe her horrible talent only worked on vampires.

"Would you please not do that?" The redhead asked in a controled but furious voice.

She laughed again. "Just checking. No harm done, apparently."

So Jane couldn't hurt this girl the way she could me, and this wasn't a normal thing for her.

"Well, it appears that there's not much left for us to do," Jane said, her voice a dead monotone again. "Odd. We're not used to being rendered unnecessary. It's too bad we missed the fight. It sounds like it would have been entertaining to watch."

"Yes," The redhead retorted. "And you were so close. It's a shame you didn't arrive just a half hour earlier. Perhaps you could have fullfilled your purpose here."

I fought a smile. So the redhead was the mindreader, and he'd heard everything I'd wanted him to hear.

Jane stared back at the mind reader with a blank expression. "Yes. Quite a pity how things turned out, isn't it?"

He just nodded, and I wondered what he was hearing in Jane's head.

She turned her face back to me now. There was nothing in her eyes, but I knew my time had run out. She's gotten what she needed, not knowing I'd given the mind reader everything I could, and protected his coven's secrets as well. He'd killed Victoria and Riley for me.

I glanced at the mind reader from the corner of my eye and thought, thanks.

"Felix?" Jane said lazily.

"Wait," said mind reader said loudly. He turned to Carlisle and spoke quickly. "We could explain the rules to the young one. She doesn't seem unwilling to learn. She didn't know what she was doing.

"Of course," Carlisle agreed eagerly, looking at Jane. "We would certainly be prepared to take responsibility for Bree."

"We don't make exceptions," Jane told them, amused. "and we don't give second chances. It's bad for our reputation. Which reminds me," She went on, her eyes locking onto the human girl. "Caius will be so interested to hear that you're still human, Bella. Perhaps he'll decide to visit."

Still human?

"The date is set," The little vampire with the short black hair said in a clear voice. "Perhaps we'll come to visit you in a few months.

Jane's smile disappeared like someone had wiped it off. She shrugged, turning back to Carlisle. "It was nice to meet you, Carlisle. Well, until we meet again."

This would be it then. I still didn't feel afraid. My only regret was that I couldn't tell Fred more about all of this. He was going almost totally blind into this world of dangerous politics and dirty cops and secret covens. But Fred was smart and careful, and talented. What could they do to him if they couldn't even see him? Maybe the yellow-eyes would meet Fred someday. Be nice to him, please, I thought at the mind reader.

"Take care of that, Felix," Jane said indifferently, nodding at me. "I want to go home."

"Don't watch," The redheaded mind reader whispered.

I closed my eyes... and it was then that all hell broke loose.

Saria: yup, definitely never writing a chapter that long EVER again... It's all just one big plagerism festival... but I need the backstory... took me hours, and I didn't even come up with virtually any of it... boo...