They are coming for me and there's no place to hide. Was all I could think as I heard my brothers yelling and furniture being thrown about the living room. I have no weapons and nowhere to run, what am I gonna do. SHIT! Think girl think, hide in the closet and arm yourself with as many stilettos as you can grab hold of. The least you can do is maybe maim one or two of them in the process.

I pulled myself out of my inner ramblings to realize that the noises downstairs had stopped. Were my brothers hurt? Were they dead? Jesus what's going to happen to me now? I didn't have to wait long for an answer I heard footsteps on the stairs and an eerie male voice saying, 'come out little Barbie, we won't hurt you'.

Yeah right, I thought to myself. They just took down James and Peter, like I'm not gonna get hurt the moment they find me.

I heard the floorboards creak outside my door and the loud squeak of my door and I fought to keep my breath from hitching.

"Come on precious, if you're good I'll make sure that you're unharmed when we put you on the market." The creepy voice said.

Oh dear lord, they're going to rape me before they sell me into slave labor. Where was Jasper? Why did this have to happen when he left? They had to have planned this, they had to have been watching the house. If he were here they would never have gotten this far. He would have taken them all down.

Suddenly the door to my closet and hiding spot slid open and a man with dreadlocks stood before me. He smirked just a bit and then slowly held his hand out to me in beckoning. I stared at it then back at him. Was he serious? Did he really think I would go willingly? Two words. HELL! NO!

"She's even more beautiful than Marcus described. Laurent, how are we going to do this without bruising her? She's not going to budge and I really don't want either of those heels embedded in my skull." Said the Egyptian man walking through my door.

"Don't worry Amun, I got this taken care of." Laurent said as he pulled out a gun and fired it.

I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself for pain or death. Although there was a slight sting in my arm there was no pain and no eternal darkness. I opened my eyes to look at my arm and found what looked to be a small needle with a pink feathery puff sticking off the end of it. As my world around me started to get fuzzy the last thing I heard was the voice of dreadlocks saying 'mark Rosalie Whitlock off the list, tomorrow we grab Isabella McCarty'.

0-0-0-0-0-0-0

I was sitting in Emmett's study waiting for him to bring her in. I was staring at the family portrait over his fireplace. The family looked happy but who wouldn't with the money and connections they had and the fact that the picture was taken before the world went to hell in a hand basket. Five years, five long years I have survived. My parents Carlisle and Irina had died only a few short months after the outbreak began. I missed them so much but thankfully I wasn't alone. Emmett came to my home from time to time and I spoke to him and his brother's on the phone constantly. We only lived about 100 miles apart but it felt like a thousand. I survived the outbreak with my older brother Peter, my twin Rosalie and my younger brother James. Emmett was in the same boat, his father Charlie had died about two years before the outbreak, hit head-on by a drunk driver. His mother Esme was one of the first to succumb to the disease. He and his two younger brothers, Edward and Riley, were forced to come home to care for her and his baby sister Bella. Poor thing had been in the car wreck with Charlie and miraculously survived without a scratch. But miracles don't really happen now do they, nope we can't all live in a fantasy world where everything we wish for comes true.

See Bella was one of the first to show that she was special, part of a mutation in our evolutionary DNA so to speak. She is a shield, a very powerful mental shield and I suspect from what Emmett has told me a physical one as well. The poor little darlin' is very shy, has always been since the first time I met her when she was a mere 7 years old. Their whole family seems to be quite talented. Riley the middle son can manipulate the elements, I pissed him off one time and BAM the dirt beneath me was gone and the ground swallowed me up to my neck. Then he made it rain just on me and followed it with a flash blizzard. Quite the feat considering they live outside Houston, Texas. The youngest brother Edward can read minds and is one hell of an opponent in a Texas Hold'em game. Emmett is built like a professional linebacker without an ounce of fat on his body so it was a given when his talent surfaced as unbelievable strength but it still pisses him off that he can't beat me.

My family of course is just as blessed in the talent department. I am an empath and not only can I sense emotions but can manipulate them and use them as a weapon on others. Ever try to attack a person while filled with an intense desire to laugh your head off? That is my favorite way to subdue a person. Or better yet when a person is depressed or wants to mope and you fill them with lust. Ha, classic. Used that once on Rosalie, first she slapped me upside the head which hurt that girl packs a wallop. Second she turned her own power on me. My sister's beauty is not only skin deep but it has the power to allure any man and plenty of women. She used it to convince me to confess every rule I had broken to my parents, EVER. After 20 minutes of telling them about dying Rose's hair purple and breaking a few valuable vases, shooting my brothers with the BB gun and countless others she finally let me off the hook and told mom about her talent as well as mine and Peter's and James'. James is a tracker, I swear that boy is better than 20 bloodhounds right after a torrential downpour. Peter my older brother, well he just knows shit. And when I say that I mean that every once in a while he'll get this far off look and then he starts rattling on about answering the phone before it rings and tells us what we have to do to resolve a situation that hasn't even happened yet. It's freaky with a capital F.

So here I am post outbreak 5 years later sitting in Emmett's study thinking about what has happened to bring me to this point in my life. I'm 24 years old and a male survivor of the plague as we have grown to call it. It took 44% of the population and surprisingly 76% of those that died were women. It caused quite the stir and those left in power immediately created laws declaring that any available women had to be married off as soon as they reached their 18th birthday. Somehow I had enough pull with my family money and connection to extend Rosalie's sentence to her 20th birthday but it gave me enough time to fake her death and she has been safely hidden at our estate ever since. This is the reason why I'm here at Emmett's. He was able to grant the same convenience for his sister Bella by explaining that her emotional status was too delicate and she needed more time. He had explained how she had been thrown from the wreckage of her father's car and had to watch him scream and die, trapped inside then when the plague hit she was the only one home to care for their mother. Emmett only made it home 2 days before Esme died. Bella spent nearly a month on her own at the age of 15 caring for her mother who died from some sort of lab created killer disease. Poor thing doesn't say much verbally but I can tell you that when her shield is down her emotions are potent. I haven't seen her since she was 13 and the portrait was taken only a few months before Esme got sick so I'm kind of curious to see what 5 years has done to her. Emmett decided that Bella was going to live with me and that she and I would get married. He couldn't bear the fact of some stranger coming for her and he knew they would be coming soon.

I was brought out of my ramblings by the sounds of two sets of footsteps coming down the hall. One definitely heavier than the other, as I looked towards the door Emmett slowly entered by himself. "She's a bit mad at me right now. I told her what was happening and she projected her physical shield at me. Good thing mom is no longer around because she would have been angry at me for the hole I left in the kitchen wall." Emmett said while massaging his neck where it met the shoulder.

"So I was right she has a physical shield as well. I can also see that her mental shield has grown because I can't feel her emotions at all. If it wasn't for the fact that I heard her walk down the hall with you I would not know that she's standing outside the door." I replied.

"Yeah like I said, angry with me. She thinks she CAN TAKE CARE OF HERSELF." Emmett said yelling the last part at the door.

"Play nice Em, or she'll throw you through another wall." I said.

Suddenly I was hit with a burst of amusement and I couldn't contain the smile and laughter that escaped me. "What the fuck are you laughing at asshole?" Emmett growled.

"Bella let her shield slip for a second and she found my comment VERY funny." I replied.

"Is that so? Get in here Bean, just because you're almost 20 and full grown doesn't mean I can't still take you over my knee and spank you." Emmett bellowed toward the door.

I looked at the door again as it slowly opened and what I saw would have brought me to my knees had I not already been seated at the desk. Bella stepped through the doorway and I have to say that the past seven years have done wonders for her. She was only about 5'4 and a tiny frame but the girl had the right amount of curves in all the right places. Her dark brown hair fell in loose curls to the small of her back, her skin was an impeccably smooth creamy color. She had perfectly curved hips and just the right size breasts and an ass that screamed to be squeezed. And her eyes, I remember them being chocolate brown but I forgot how they could look as if they were staring into the depths of your soul. Dear lord she is breathtaking! Speaking of which I think I may have stopped breathing.

"Damn Jazz, can you shut your mouth and try to compose yourself? You are projecting and I really don't need to have these feelings about my own sister. I need to see Rose like now because of the shit you are throwing out there." Emmett said quickly bringing me out of my reverie.

Bella let out a little giggle and then quickly turned her head so that I couldn't see her face.

"Sorry Em, but it just shocks me that your momma could have such ugly oafs for sons and then produce such an angelic creature as Bella. She probably rubs that in on a daily basis right?" I said in an attempt to cover up my embarrassment.

He was about to speak when my phone went off and I held up a hand to excuse myself. "Sorry it's Peter, give me a second."

I answered my phone to the sounds of both Peter and James yelling at one another and screaming what are we gonna do over and over again. Great now what is their problem?

"Peter what the hell are you two screaming about?"

"Jasper, they came last night for Rose. They took her man. We tried to fight them but one of the guys shot us with a dart gun. They took her, she's gone." Peter panted.

"What? When? How? Who?" I rambled.

"I recognized the one, it was Laurent?" Peter whimpered.

"Shit. That means Diego has her and she's going to be sold into the sex slave trade. Em and I are on our way. Get everything ready we leave as soon as we get there in the morning." I shouted and hung up the phone.

"Jasper please tell me that my fiancée hasn't been kidnapped and sold into the sex slave industry." Emmett practically whispered.

"Okay I won't tell you that but we still need to go now. Can Riley and Edward protect Bella while we are gone?" I asked.

"Of course, they are very skilled. They train by trying to take me down every day."

"Bella, keep your mental shield up as long as you possibly can while we are gone and practice with the physical one. At the first sign of trouble hide and keep that shield up darlin'." I said as I lifted her chin to look into her eyes.

"Bella, I love you for forever and ever. Be strong and listen to your brothers. Stay safe Bean." Emmett whispered as he hugged her tight.

"You too, Emmy bear." She replied. "Jasper?"

"Yes, darlin'?"

"I hope my soon-to-be sister is alright. And please bring my big brother home in one piece." Bella said to me.

"Of course."

As we walked out the door I was hit with the full force of her emotions and if I wasn't already focused on getting Rose back I would have dropped on the spot. She was scared for Em and confident of my abilities, proud of us both, love for her brother, and confused about an underlying emotions that she couldn't explain but I knew what it was. I had felt the same thing the moment she started laughing at my embarrassment for ogling her. It was love, for ME!