Author's note: The idea for this fanfic came to me in 2012, but not until now I got the inspiration to actually write it. This is set in an AU. The events are the same up until Alice meeting James for the very first time. Alice meets Jasper in the 1920's instead of later.

"I've lost the use of my heart
But I'm still alive"

Darkness had just begun to set when she came to him. He had been waiting for the day's heat to settle along with the winds – it made the newborns stingy – so he could finally step into action again.

"We're going to conquer Mexico City," she said, eyes glowing. "Before next month."

An instinctive reluctance filled him, repulse for her plans, and he forced himself to hide it from her. She had become a bit wary around him lately and he knew better than letting her sense his disapproval. Her emotions wrapped around him, almost suffocating, giving him a false sense of meaning and purpose again.

Maria's hand with sharp nails trailed down his back, aiming to seduce and stroke. She drove men to death for her sake every day. When she reached up to kiss him, he responded. She didn't bother to trick him with feelings of lust anymore; he only felt her greed seeping like venom into his system.

He should really hate her. Hate her, Nettie and Lucy who made him like this.

"What about the Volturi?" he asked blankly. "They have been keeping an eye on us lately."

She rolled her eyes. "Cara mio, as long as those demons stay in Volterra, we're safe. I've got you. It won't get too messy. If Benito knew what a failure he was…" she mused, blood lust in her velvet tone. "Imagine all the blood we'll have… the power, when we conquer all of this country. How many bodies we can drain in one night… All mine and yours, Jasper. We'll start with Ecatepec…"

Somehow sensing his tension, she leaned closer, red lips ghosting over his neck. "You can have as much blood as you want tonight." He sensed her smile against his skin. "No need to hold yourself back. Major, you can have anyone you want in the army."

It was more of a threat than a promise. He did not want anyone. Once he had been eager to please her, this woman whose words ruled his world. But the decades together had changed him. She rarely gave herself to him anymore, and the wariness had become more prominent. Straightening his posture, he let her feelings overwrite his own.

"How many newborns do you need?"

"Fifty, to begin with. They don't need to be trained yet."

It was more than she ever had asked him to care for at once, but he would simply have to do it. They were all going to become vampire food, to meet the army of whoever currently owned the area – the territorial wars were the bloodiest. He tensed up slightly, and she noticed.

She set her crimson eyes on him, gaze almost burning him.

"I want that city. Me explico bien? Is that clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

He had never defied her, not even once. She stepped closer, swiftly like a shadow, and sneaked one arm around his shoulders. Leaning closer and overwhelming him with her scent, a smile played on her full lips.

She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but that held little importance. Blood was their religion, blood was all that mattered. Blood was what they killed for, what they died for.

Her hand cupped his jaw, as her sweet breath swept over his face.

"Major, you fought in the Confederate Army, didn't you?"

The blood-thirsty smile grew; she fluttered her thick lashes as she whispered his nickname hotly into his ear.

She had already won. Wavy black hair fell like a veil around her shoulders as she teasingly pulled back. A sadistic smile glowed on her face.

"Then you already soiled your hands in blood. You can never escape."

She left the room and he could sense her confidence like a visible trail behind her. He was left in his bottomless pit of darkness.

"Yes Ma'am."

x

The new group of newborns was still changing. Peter looked almost physically worn out, despite it being impossible. Charlotte, the small female who mostly hung around him – for protection, Jasper guessed – looked pityingly at the squirming human bodies.

Those two were the only ones who managed to keep a somewhat clear state of mind when their blood lust had been sated, so Jasper gave them babysitting chores. He didn't trust them for a moment, but they were more useful than the rest of the older newborns.

The humans were copped up in a large, rundown barn in the countryside, far away from human prying eyes. Jasper inspected them briefly and estimated they had about a day left before their hearts stopped and the transformation was complete. There were about twenty of them, no more had survived. Maria wouldn't be happy with that fact.

One girl was strangely pale despite not having been transformed yet. She was changing, yet lay still like a corpse. Not even a muscle in her body moved to reveal the agonizing pain. If it wasn't for her fluttering, strained heart giving her away, they would have disposed of her already, but Maria forbade the wasting of newborns. She had become desperate lately.

Jasper doubted that even he would get away with it, but this human smelled better than anyone he had ever came across. He had rarely been tempted to drain a transforming newborn before, but even as her inviting human scent had weakened and almost disappeared as the venom invaded her cells, there was something special about her smell.

He was fully satiated from the night's hunting and left her be, despite the familiar ache in his throat.

Among the screams of agony and desperation from the other humans, hellish fire coursing through them, she remained silent and unmoving. She was very small and malnourished, even more so than the others who were in doubtful conditions as well. Her body had clear marks of something on her ankles and wrists, as if she had been strapped down. Short black hair surrounded her face, chopped off in a strange way.

During the decades Jasper had noticed changes in the way the newborns and humans dressed and looked; styles came and went. The turn of the century changed that, and although he wasn't exactly sure what year it was, he knew it must have been at least two decades since the 19th century ended.

"Caught her just passing the American border," Peter said when he noticed Jasper's hard gaze lingering on the girl for a moment. "Think she was trying to flee with the rest."

Uninterestedly, Jasper looked away. "And the others?"

"I don't know. They were already off the charts, won't be missed."

"Let me know as soon as they start waking up," he ordered and left. The desperation and pain of the transforming humans were blasting at him, their screams unbearable when he felt them as his own. Next month he'd have to go through the same thing all over again, when the new human cattle were brought in for their impending slaughter.

xxx

Darkness.

Alone in the enormous black space, all she heard was a slow, thumping heartbeat.

It was struggling, on the verge of giving out. She could feel it, her chest constricted as her heart slowly gave up. She wanted to urge it to keep beating, to keep her alive, but in the end it didn't really matter. This darkness was an iron blanket around her, and she couldn't picture anything else.

There was a flicker of something – something she tried to reach for, but when she did the darkness enveloped her again. The slow, agonizing heartbeats were her only company.

Thump, thump-thump…

Thu-

Silence. For a second she was completely surrounded by a crushing silence in a compact darkness. The fear made her cave into herself.

Alice…

my name is Alice.

The darkness exploded in her face, turned into blinding white, and then nothing. Not a sound, not a sight, not a smell reached her, as she rested in complete nothingness. Yet she felt more energized than ever.

A burning sensation was creeping up her chest, her throat. It manifested like a fire inside, a desperate need for something.

She opened her eyes.

xxx

It was almost dawn by the time the last newborns woke up. The earliest risers had already gotten into several fights resulting in torn apart limbs, and Jasper had to use the full extent of his calming and fear-inducing abilities to rein them in.

The most aggressive newborn, a large male with brown hair, sat in a corner attaching his hand to his wrist again with venom. The female who had fought him sat in the opposite corner, red eyes narrowed into slits as she watched her surroundings.

They were all insanely thirsty, as heard by their desperate roars, whimpers and groans. Jasper had to wait until they were all awake before he took them hunting; Peter was not capable of handling them on his own. He noticed how the female friend of Peter had been staying behind his back ever since the first one woke up.

He was considering leaving the last two newborns behind and taking the unruly group out hunting, it had been long enough already. When Maria came back from her own hunting trip, or whatever she did during the times she left Jasper in charge of the army, she would expect everything to be ready.

Finally the first of the two remaining newborns woke up, a sturdily built female with long brown hair. Jasper stood leaned against the wall a bit from the group and watched.

They were all the same when they woke up. The instant suspicion, defense position, taking in the surroundings and instinctively searching for a throbbing pulse.

The strange black-haired girl caught his attention again, as she was the last one to awaken. She simply sat up, her back and neck straight. A useless position in such a dangerous environment, baring her entire clothed backside. She looked around with wide, red eyes.

He sensed no anger or aggressiveness coming from her, not even a hint of suspicion. Only the same as the others; the grating thirst.

Jasper stepped into the room and captured everyone's attention, influencing them to calm down.

"Listen to me. You belong to my army now –" as always, he was protecting Maria's name – "and you will do what I tell you. If you don't, you will die. If you as I say, you will get rewarded with blood."

"Blood," several newborns clutched their throats with pained expressions.

"I know you're thirsty. Follow us and we'll give you blood. Don't fight each other. The enemy is on the outside, not in here."

Without ever turning his back to the newborns, Jasper saw them follow Peter out of the barn, a group of ex-humans that now only had one thing in common – the thirst. Despairing, obsessive, greedy and pained, looking up to Jasper as if he was their sole savior.

The black-haired girl walked out last, making no attempt to push herself in front of the others, seemingly completely unaware of what she was doing.

Jasper and Peter led them like a herd of wolfish sheep to a small village not far from their current hideout. They probably would end up killing most of the inhabitants, but Jasper was willing to overlook that; the Volturi wouldn't step in just because one town off the map was massacred.

When the presence of the villagers became known to the newborns, the bloodbath immediately began. One of them caught the scent in the wind, the salivating sounds of heartbeats, and all scattered.

Jasper watched in the background; his time was later. He focused on the heavy, almost arousing satisfaction of the feasting newborns, drowning out the terror of the humans.

Bodies spread like dead birds on the streets as the newborns started bickering. They always wanted to take each other's prey, like toddlers stealing food from each other. Even though there were more than enough humans to sate them all, they still wanted more. The streets drenched in blood, screams were cut off as the preys' throats were crushed by teeth. The bodies of children on the streets, the corpses of parents who tried to protect them. Jasper forced back a wave of disgust.

"Remember what I said," he shouted, "Don't draw too much attention to yourselves or you will be punished."

The small black-haired girl had silently stayed in the background while taking her prey. Some of the newborns were smarter, or rather more shy – by keeping out of the way of the more aggressive ones they could avoid getting attacked and thus surviving longer.

Jasper was about to call everyone and make them follow him back, when he froze.

That girl looked like the kind of vampire who wouldn't survive long in battle, one of the first to go. With her small build and withdrawn attitude, she was less than an optimal fighter and would have a disadvantage.

In the corner of his eyes he saw blood dripping from her small mouth, as the drained body fell to her feet. She reached for the second prey she had captured, when the muscular brown-haired male barged over and snatched the human body from her. She blankly pulled the corpse back, not paying any mind to the cracking sound it made.

The male growled and bared his fangs at her, before lunging at her. Jasper had seen it a million times and he didn't care enough to intervene – survival of the fittest. Yet he didn't take his eyes off her.

It happened so fast, his vampire eyes almost couldn't keep up. Before the attacking vampire had a change to crush her, she simply moved. His large hands grasped thin air and he whirled around, looking wildly for her, only to find her moving out of his grip again. Like a ghost, she managed to move, in a hypnotizing dance - as if she knew where he would strike next.

Jasper stared at her, and noticed Peter's curiosity mixing with his own as they watched her.

So she was gifted – Maria would be satisfied. Maybe this little vampire had a bigger chance of surviving than he thought. She would definitely be useful.

Something still prompted him to walk over as the deadly dance continued. Maybe it was a remnant of his past life, a shard of what he had been taught, to protect the weak-looking ones. That was what the human soldier Jasper Whitlock would have done.

What caught him by surprise was that the little female did not pay any attention to Jasper approaching, despite being able to sense him. As if she already knew his intention wasn't to tear her apart, but only break up the fight.

The large male stopped when Jasper grasped his throat and flung him to the ground.

"The enemy is out there," he reminded with a snarl. "Get going."

He got up and sulking joined the others, along with Peter who kept them gathered.

Jasper stood in front of her. She stood completely still, her eyes distant again.

"What is your name?" he asked.

She flinched.

"Alice." Something flickered through her eyes, a hint of curiosity, and she tilted her head slightly to the side. "What's yours?"

It unnerved him completely, this strange behavior. He stared her down. "You don't need to know. How did you evade that attack?"

She thought for a moment. "I saw it."

Her wide eyes prompted him to turn away, as he approached the rest of the newborns. "Let's get going."

xxx

I saw something.

She tried desperately to come to terms with what happened, why she saw that vampire moving before he actually did. In the absolute pitch black darkness clouding everything that happened before she woke up, only those small flickers had meant something at all. This had been the same kind of glimpse.

She followed the vampires back and noticed how the leader kept glancing at her. Did he think she would attack him?

She didn't want to do that. He had not been aggressive towards her. She didn't want to destroy that other brown-haired male either, how was it even possible to kill any of them?

There was no telling how she ended up here in this desert landscape, with this group of blood-thirsty beings that this one man seemed to control. There was no knowing where she came from – her name was her only solitude. At least I know I am someone. But who?

This time, the color that captured her wasn't black.

It was flashing white, reminding her of something she didn't know, blinding her for a moment and devouring her vision. All she saw was white and strange glimpses– it slowly became clearer, appearing in front of her.

Among all the white was the image of the leader vampire. There was no mistaking, his golden locks and his stern face was the same. But his eyes-

The image flashed by in less than a fraction of a second, and the white faded. Her surroundings were normal again. The dusty wind brought hundreds of tiny grains of sand, she felt them sweeping over her face like minimal feathers.

Alice blinked. I saw him.

To be continued. Reviews are very appreciated.