Author's Note: First of all, I don't own this story (obviously)! All the characters are Stephanie Meyer's wonderful creation with some tweak's from my imagination. This is my first in this category, but I'm very rusty in writing, so hope it is okay!

Jasper

The wind was whistling against the trees, as the sound of song birds turned into the caw of crows.

Something was terribly wrong. He could feel it before he could sense it.

Fear. Anger. Sorrow.

Someone was near. He could definitely feel it now as his extra senses bombarded him with the strong mix of emotions. Actually, it felt like more than just someone was near. He could feel another being who was close-by, but the emotions of this second person or entities was fairly hostile.

Jasper scanned his surroundings, turning his head to make eye-contact with Emmett who had accompanied him into the forest on a "hiking-trip," which was only a cover to hide their need to feed on large animals as a way to quench their blood-thirst due to being a vampire.

"Emmett, you smell that?" Jasper spoke, using his mind to communicate with his non-blood related brother, knowing for sure that Emmett couldn't have missed the smell. A human or more than one human was near-by and he, she or they were injured.

Emmett nodded in response, narrowing his eyes with thirst, throat throbbing mercilessly.

As controlled as Emmet and himself may seem around humans, it was always a struggle for their kind who chose a different path from normal, human killing vampires. Both of them were part of the Cullen clan who viewed themselves as a family-unit striving for humanity. Other than their father-figure, Carlisle, who had spent centuries perfecting his immunity to the smell of blood through medicine, the rest of the clan still had some difficulties with abstinence. It was truly like trying to cage up a monster without a lock, where pure will-power was the only thing holding the gate of the cage closed.

"Should we check it out?" Emmett asked, trying hard not to breathe so that the thirst wouldn't be as strong. His face was scrunched up in self-restraint.

"I don't know, but I have a strong feeling that we need do something. I feel something is incredibly wrong." Jasper said as he concentrated for a second around the emotions where all three emotions, fear, anger and sorrow, were fighting with one another to take the upper-hand, but all three were equally as powerful. "There are a lot of negative emotions. I need to know what is going on." Jasper said with a distant look in the direction of the emotions. He had made up his mind. He had to help. Luckily, it looked like Emmett was thinking the same thing. Carlisle's teachings were definitely rubbing off on them.

He and Emmett sprinted toward the cause of their thirst, but most importantly, the source of the anguish. It became eerily quiet, so quiet that it was unnatural. The surroundings must have felt the disturbance too, deciding to go silent in response to what was to come. That was when they heard the voice. The voice was small and insignificant, but it held the strength of a person beyond their years. That was when they also sensed a movement, too fast to be a human, and the strong stench of fresh blood.

"Hello friend. Have you come in need of a snack?" A patronizing voice said, as a tall, pale figure stopped abruptly, but gracefully in front of him and Emmett. His hair was blond and slicked back into a pony-tail. His clothes revealed that he was a nomad, with his shirt unbuttoned, revealing his glistening vampire skin.

Out of the corner of his eyes, another figure landed lightly onto her feet from above, hair flailing like fire raging over a spilled canister of gasoline.

"Don't be so rude James. We must introduce ourselves," the woman said with a smirk on her devious face. "My name is Veronica," she said, walking slowly towards her partner, "and this is James," she said, pointing towards her brooding mate.

Emmett glared at the two, probably itching for a fight.

Jasper himself grimaced, seeing immediately that a killing had been committed here, as he looked upon the two dead bodies, one male and one female, and at the looks of it, in their early or mid-twenties. It was such a waste. "I'm Jasper and this is Emmett," he said, nodding toward his bulky brother. "We're really sorry, we were just passing by," Jasper said, trying to pacify the situation before it turned aggressive. The problem was that he couldn't shake the feelings that he still felt being emitted even stronger than before. That was when he noticed a small movement from deep within a bush, wedged in between a thick tree and a boulder the size of a Volkswagen. His eyes immediately locked onto two big, brown, doe-like eyes of a young child, who couldn't have been more than four or five years old. He couldn't help from gasping in shock at the realization of what had just occurred.

"Don't come any closer you monster," the child yelled as she backed up closer to the tree, but still standing her ground with angry, but fearful eyes.

"Ahhh…. so that's where you were hiding," James said as if he didn't already know, slowly tracing his teeth with his tongue. "The main course was okay, but I'm still hungry for dessert," he said with a glint of wickedness in his eyes and his twisted grin.

Right as James was ready to pounce on the defenseless child, Emmett and Jasper leapt in front of the aggressor, stopping James from going any further.

"I'm sorry, we were just passing," Jasper said with more purpose to his voice, standing his ground to protect the child.

Emmett immediately scooped the child into his arms, holding her protectively to his chest with an iron vice-grip.

The child didn't seem to object, sensing that her protectors were truly there to help her instead of trying to hurt her.

Victoria and James snarled, crouching down low as they revealed their sharp fangs to the two who had interrupted their feeding.

"Are you seriously going to try to save this human?" Victoria laughed in a menacing tone. "We already made a good meal of her guardians. She has no one left," she said as she glared at the two of them.

It was a very tense moment as the two pairs stared angrily at one another. The seconds that they were standing there felt like hours, and Jasper knew he had to get the child away from the danger as fast as possible, because he could feel the increasing fury from the two drifters. He tried to emit a feeling of calm towards the nomads, and it seemed to ease the situation a bit.

"Let us worry about her safety," Emmett said while grinding his teeth. "She is just a child. Leave her be," he added as he held the child close to him, the child who had yet to make another sound, seeming content to peek over Emmett's large arm every few seconds to glare at the two people who killed her parents.

"You can't fight the both of us," James sneered, walking in a deliberate semi-circle to trap the two trespassers.

Jasper frowned, knowing the truth of the situation was not in his and Emmett's favor.

"Oh yes they can with the help of us," a voice of chiming bells said, as the love of his life leapt next to him. Alice turned to him, smiling her charming smile as she held her hands firmly on her hips. Alice and Jasper both shared a knowing look that only meant that she saw what had transpired through her gift of seeing the future, and had brought help.

That was when Jasper noticed another familiar presence as another one of his brothers, Edward, stepped out of the shadows to the stand on the other side of him, creating an unbreakable wall in front of Emmett and the small, brown haired child.

"As I said, we don't want any trouble. We were just passing," Jasper repeated for the third time, this time with a confident smirk on his face as he watched the nomads back away with a furious look.

"You won't regret this. I will find that little, pathetic human again when you bore of her, and she will be the taste of glory," James sneered again, holding his stance for another quick second, before turning abruptly away, nodding at Victoria. They both took off in the opposite direction of the Cullens, knowing that the hand had turned on them.

Jasper and Emmett took a deep breath and breathed out in relief that it was over.

"BOOYAH!" Emmett laughed in a booming voice, immediately causing the young girl to scream out in terror.

The young girl instantly began to try to get out of Emmett's grip, which Emmett easily let her down gently. She backed up quickly, falling on her behind in her haste to flee the large group in front of her.

Jasper immediately felt the anguish, fear and confusion from the young girl, and it hit him like a train barreling into him.

"Who are you?" She yelled as she clawed her way to her dead parents, tears streaming down her tortured eyes.

Jasper felt the grief from the young girl and tried to emit a feeling of calm and lethargy towards the frightened child who instantly began to fall tired onto her father's still arm. "It's alright young one. You can sleep now," he said soothing as he picked the child into his arms. "We won't let anything happen to you," Jasper continued with a reassuring Southern accent. "I promise," he said at last and she was asleep.

"What are we going to do with her?" Emmett asked as he crossed his arms in a wide stance, his face contemplating the situation at hand.

"You know he's never going to stop hunting her," Edward said quietly with a serious look on his face. "I looked into his mind. He's a tracker. We just gave him the opportunity to start one of the most challenging hunts he has ever had, and he's not going to stop until he wins," he said in disturbed tone, "or we die."

"We'll win," Jasper said with determination in his voice. He knew he couldn't hand her over. Something about this girl was special, but even so, she was just a child.

"Oh yah we will!" Emmett added, as Alice slapped him in the arm for being loud again.

Edward walked closer to the Jasper and the young girl, brushing a tear away from her eyes. "Whoever you are little mystery child, I hope you are worth the war that has just started over you."

Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this story! Please write a review with whatever comments you want. I really don't care. Constructive criticism is nice :D I'm fairly bored this winter, so I might just update very quickly with the right amount of motivation *wink wink* XD Thanks for reading and I really hope to continue, but we'll see how this goes.