Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns all creative rights to all the characters except for those not mentioned in the original Twilight series. I do not, in any way, make any profit from this. No copyright infringement intended.

A/n: I doubt many noticed that this fic was suddenly taken down. It was by accident and I didn't even know until the day after it happened. Long story short, I will keep in mind never to let my pesky little brother have any reason to annoy me by playing random practical jokes. But in a way, this was an opportunity in disguise. Before re-uploading it, I went back and made some minor revisions to the first few chapters and broke them up into more manageable reading chunks. Hopefully, it will be easier for you guys to read and much easier for me to write and update. Reviews, alerts, and faves are all very much welcome! I give you much love and e-cookies in return. ;D

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Chapter 1: Ugly Thoughts

"It all started innocently enough..."

Running both his hands through his messy blond hair, Jasper tugged at the roots for good measure as if that could possibly alleviate his anxiety. He was watching the many people gathered in the large cafeteria hall and he felt sick to his stomach, thoroughly disgusted with himself. His senses were on overload. His tongue felt dry, his lips chapped, his skin felt prickly with heat, his throat burning with thirst and his sense of smell bombarded by the scent of blood. Tantalizingly fresh human blood. It was becoming too much to bear.

He was having one of those days. Those days when all you want to do was stay at home, curl up in bed, and sleep till everyone around you decides to believe you're dead. Unfortunately for him, he was dead and he couldn't sleep and staying home wasn't an option. Instead, he was spending his day in school (an idea he was slowly coming to realize was not a very good or reasonable one at that), waiting to get back home where he could just let down his defenses and be himself. At home he laughed, he joked, and most importantly, he was happy. Here he was so rigid, everything and anything could very well make him snap. He wanted to leave. He should leave. Staying in an enclosed space like this was hazardous to their health. Not his, but theirs. He was the ticking time bomb. He was the danger.

He groaned and buried his face in his palm, resting his chin against the heel of his hand. He needed another "family outing" and soon. His thirst for blood was at a relative high. Their last excursion felt like it had been months and months ago. To him, it was like the first stages of quitting a bad habit that had been going on for years. He was going through withdrawal symptoms and need a fix badly. But the problem was he couldn't get one now. It wasn't like he could just sneak out of the campus for a little smoke. He sorely wished he wasn't going through this rehab. Because that's what it felt like, rehab. Rehab for vampires that is. He was so tired of trying hard to resist and he felt like a failure for not being good enough.

Jasper grasped the edge of his seat so hard that he could have easily broken off a piece. It did nothing to curb his anxiety though. Unwarily, a young girl came deathly close to their table. He was blatantly staring at her but she didn't seem to notice or even if she did, did not care. She was an odd looking sort of thing with her jet black hair ridiculously long, stretching well passed her waist. Her rather big blue eyes took most of her narrow face, giving her that comical deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. She was not pale like he was (or like most Caucasians living in Forks) but a nice natural tan, hinting that she was not from here until recently.

When she had passed him, he knew he was a goner. Her smell was seared into his senses as long as he was unable to quench his thirst or run far, far, far away from there. Even after she had disappeared into the throngs of faceless students, he could still smell her, the taste of her blood practically on his tongue. He was so concentrated on her that it was driving him mad with need. He pushed his hand up against his nose, sufficiently blocking the air and the scent. If only he could go around like this all the time. It would make things a thousand times easier.

"Are you alright, Jazz?" A hand clutched at his right shoulder, long, manicured fingernails digging into his flesh, inexplicably tearing him away from his reverie. He looked up and exhaled. It was Rosalie, staring down at him in her usual condescending manner. He tried to smile at his so-called sister but the look on her face said that she wasn't buying it. He immediately dropped all pretenses and looked away.

"I'm fine," he managed to ground out. He didn't want to appear weak. Back during his newborn army days, weakness equaled death. She squeezed his shoulder again and raised an eyebrow, silently taunting him. He didn't have to see the expression on her face for him to know what she thought and it only made him angrier.

"Who are you trying to convince, hmm?" she asked. She was just playing around with him, he knew, but he couldn't dig himself out of the hole he had made for himself. He wanted to wallow in his own self-pity and be left alone to do so.

"You obviously," he shot back, shrugging his shoulders intentionally so that she'd let go. She did and sank down into the chair beside him with a graceful flourish.

"Well! Someone's really testy today. That time of the month?" she continued to tease, her eyes lighting up in mischief. He didn't bat an eyelash.

It was a joke amongst them whenever it was nearing the time when they needed to feed again. They called it "that time of the month". Emmett had coined the term one day when he was teasing Jasper because he actually acted like a woman on her period. Jasper had never found it funny however which only amused Emmett all the more.

"Stop it, Rose," Alice chided, coming up to them. She had a tray with her that carried the usual sparse amount of food – a banana, yogurt, and a bag of chips – none of which would be eaten. When he looked at what else was on the table – Emmett had a soda can he was twirling with fingers and Rosalie was pretending to eat a salad – he only barely managed to stop the urge to shout at them.

'Wasteful,' he thought, his military mindset kicking in. He never understood the need to put up fronts. In fact, it made the whole situation more awkward and contrived. Acting as if they were eating in front of these people? What kind of stupidity was this? Everyone probably thought they were all anorexic anyway.

He would have rather been outside, instead of being locked away indoors because of the damn sun. The weather was overcast today but there were spots where the sun pierced through the clouds and Edward, always the cautious one, had told him not to risk it when the red-headed vampire had "accidentally" heard his thoughts earlier that day.

A frown marred Alice's angelic features, eyeing Rosalie with unveiled disapproval. Rosalie did not reply, merely turned away and promptly started up a conversation with her husband as if nothing had happened.

"I could ask Carlisle to move the trip this weekend if you can't wait," she said soothingly as she placed her tray down onto the table with a soft thwack. Secretly, Jasper wasn't sure whether to be grateful for his wife's interference or to be annoyed. Why couldn't anyone just leave him the hell alone? As much as he hated this whole situation he was in, he had some pride and he didn't want any help. What little pride and dignity he had left seemed to grow smaller and smaller with each passing day. As time passed by, he lost hope of ever getting used to this whole "vegetarian" lifestyle.

"Are you sure?" she prodded again. He wanted to shout at her but he was too much of a gentleman to do that. He just shook his head stiffly and kept quiet, thanking whatever goodness that was still left in the world that Edward was nowhere in sight, listening into his thoughts because they were not at all pleasant at the moment.

She smiled softly, taking one of his hands in both her small ones. There was nothing heartening about this gesture. Her hands were cold and hard. No comforting warmth radiating from her skin and seeping into his, something he regretfully missed from the old days. There were days when he wondered what the soft touch of a human being felt like. He looked down at their entwined fingers and suppressed the urge to yank his hand away.

"I'm sure," he answered, smiling for her benefit. Despite how he felt, he did love his little wife and did not want to worry her. She searched his eyes and decided that he was being truthful with her because she smiled in return. Satisfied, she proceeded to pick at her food. He pulled away then and resumed his people-watching.

It wasn't the blatant staring that most people did or the trying-to-be-inconspicuous glances of others. His style was somewhat more subtle than that. It did help that his senses were more finely tuned than the average human's and it didn't take much effort to hone on his "target", so to speak. He found her again by a group of students eating lunch several tables down from where he sat with his family. They were probably her friends although she wasn't really engaging herself in conversation with any of them. Instead, she was busying herself with writing something in her notebook.

Her hair, unbound and untidy, covered most of her features and the only thing he could see was the outline of her glasses that dangled precariously off the edge of her nose, threatening to fall off with one sudden jerk of her head. She was slightly taller than the average female, maybe 5'5'' or 5'6", and lanky. Not necessarily beautiful in today's modern standards but not ugly either. She was just the typical, average high school girl. On a normal day, he wouldn't have noticed her at all but today, Jasper couldn't help but stare. He imagined that it was mostly because of her scent but there was something intriguing about the way she was bent over that notebook, totally absorbed in her work, oblivious to the world around her and that there was someone who wanted to kill her and taste her blood.

Jasper shivered, not wanting to go down that dark road. Instead, he found himself thinking about her eyes – her big blue ones that reminded him of the sea. They were a piercing blue that he fancied changed depending on the light. Now it was a bluish green but later on, he fancied they could be a darker shade or fade into gray if the light was just right. On further inspection, he figured out that she wasn't writing at all but drawing. He had noticed by the way her hand moved along the paper and how she occasionally looked up for a second or two, her gaze going over the huge expanse of the room with all its inhabitants.

'So she draws,' he thought pleasantly and he was delighted that he had found something remotely interesting about the girl. Alice had told him once that if he thought of them as people rather than as, he wrinkled his nose, food then it was easier to resist. Not by much of course, as he was to learn later, but it was better than nothing. Anything was probably better than nothing.

"Who draws?" Jasper looked up to see Edward staring at him inquisitively, his usually bored-out-of-his-mind expression giving way to something that might be called as interest. Jasper scowled, finally letting his anger come up to the surface. He hated when his "brother" did that.

"Don't you dare," he warned. Edward raised both hands and backed up a step although he wore a small smile on his lips. Jasper could not fathom his siblings' apparent amusement whenever he was caught in a rut. It was hard enough that he had to control his natural instincts but he also had to curb his anger as well. They were not being helpful at all.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"Leave the poor guy alone. He's PMS-ing," Emmett explained lightly. Edward nodded casually. This was obviously nothing new amongst them.

"I told him we should ask Carlisle to move up the trip. I'm getting pretty anxious too," Alice whined loudly, not caring if anyone heard.

There was no reason to fear really. It was already standard gossip in and among the student population that the Cullens took frequent hiking, fishing, trekking and all kinds of trips during the school year. And although highly unusual and unorthodox, nobody seem to mind anymore, not when they were all very bright and didn't seem to need to attend school to actually learn anything or pass exams. One would wonder why they actual bothered with school at all. They were a queer bunch but supposedly harmless. The epitome of the perfect family.

"I think we should go tomorrow," she added decidedly. Nobody wanted to contradict her and therefore kept silent, allowing Jasper to slip back into his own thoughts.

To Be Continued...

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A/n: Thank you to my readers of the original upload of this story, especially those who took the time to review and/or put me on their faves/alerts lists. :)