AN: Okay everyone, sorry for the wait! But, here's another chapter! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. Nope. Not at all.

Jasper cursed under his breath and made a conscious effort to avoid Bella's gaze. Bella huffed in frustration; she was really over this whole vampire's lying to her thing.

"Jasper…" She said, an edge to her tone. She watched as Jasper slumped to the floor with a sigh. He looked up at her with a pleading expression, practically begging her to drop it. Bella simply glared at him.

"Don't you start lying to me! I'm so over everyone thinking I can't handle something just because I'm the weak little human...Why were you following my scent?"

Jasper's eyes hardened as she described herself as weak, but Bella kept her ground. After a few minutes of staring at eachother, he finally sighed.

"I wanted to wait to tell you...after the day you've had." He paused and took a deep breath. "Victoria is after you."

Bella furrowed her brow in confusion. "What?"

"Victoria is after you. She was James' mate. And she thinks you are the cause for his death."

There was a long moment of silence, which Jasper was starting to learn meant he would be surprised by whatever Bella's little head had thought up as a response.

"And those bastards just left me here?!" She shouted at him, and with his advanced hearing, even Jasper had to cringe. Bella shot out of the bed, pacing and throwing her hands about. It was like she wasn't just left in the woods to fend for herself hours before.

"That just proves it! There is no way the family would just leave me here to fight off a rogue vampire with a revenge pact if they gave two shits about me! Ugh!"

Bella sighed and slumped to the floor, leaning against her bed directly across from Jasper. She leaned her head back, her expression resigned.

"I can understand that they didn't really care about me. This just proves it."

She leaned her head back up and looked at Jasper, her eyes hurt but her expression carefully blank.

"But what about Charlie, Jasper? James had no problem going after my mom to get to me, and if she was home, he would have killed her without a thought. Victoria has to be the same…" She trailed off, wrapping her arms around herself again.

Jasper looked at her in shock. Why hadn't he thought of that? It made perfect sense that Victoria would be vicious in exacting her revenge, and if Jasper had left town to wander around hurt by Alice's and his split like the family thought he would...Bella, and all the people she cared for, would have been dead. A deep growl broke through and reverberated around the room before he could stop himself. He was so furious! At the so called family he had lived with for years, at those damn nomads for starting this mess, and most of all, at himself; why didn't he see how manipulative this whole affair seemed before!

He was broken out of his angry inner tirade by Bella nudging her foot against his own. Well, it felt like a nudge to him, Bella had actually not so gently kicked his foot.

He focused on her, his darkening eyes meeting her chocolate brown. She gave him a soft smile.

"Settle down there, cowboy, I'm just as upset as you are, but if you keep projecting like that the whole town will start a riot." She gave a little giggle and Jasper's eyes softened at the sound. "And they won't even know why they are so angry!"

Jasper took a few deep breaths, centering his emotions as he had learned to do after he left Maria. Bella gave him another nudge when his anger was under control enough that he knew he wasn't projecting anymore.

"There you go, cowboy!" He gave her a strained smile before something else hit him.

"If I was projectin'...why didn't it affect you?"

She smirked at his puzzled expression before tapping her temple.

"I'm a shield, remember?" Bella teased, her smirk still in place. Jasper nodded before his curiosity got the better of him.

"What is that like anyway?"

Bella tilted her head at him.

"My shield?"

He nodded again, stretching his legs out so they ended up laying right next to Bella's. She didn't even flinch, apparently getting used to their familiarity with each other.

She bit her lip a bit as she thought, and Jasper couldn't help to think it looked adorable. Wait. Adorable? Where did that come from? Jasper pushed the thought to the back of his mind to deal with later.

"Well...it's hard to explain. Like with your gift, when you were projecting, I could feel it. I could feel the anger in the air, and that it was coming from you. But it didn't affect me. It was like I had a thin bubble around me that made it so even though I could feel the anger, it wouldn't take over my own emotions."

Jasper was staring at her again. It was actually kind of creepy when vampire's stared at you. With the no need to blink thing and all.

"That's amazing…" He let out the words in a breath, his eyes lighting up in wonder. They were the most beautiful shade of honey right now...Wait. Beautiful? Ugh, what was wrong with her! She quickly pushed her train of thought out of her head.

"What do you mean, it's amazing? Haven't you heard of shields before?" In a world full of gifted vampires, a shield couldn't be that uncommon. Right?

Jasper's eyes became stern, and when he spoke his voice was stern as well.

"You have to listen to me, Isabella. Shields are very rare in our world, and very sought after, and the ones who do exist often don't show any signs of their gifts while they are human. The fact that you have powers as a shield now, and can even identify it as a shield, means your power would only grow if you are turned. The more people who find out you're a shield, the further you are in danger. I shouldn't even know, Isabella."

Bella blinked at him in shock before sighing.

"Well, fuck."

AN: Well, Bella always has been unlucky. Leave it to her to have a rare power that all of the vampire world would want. Let's hope her power helps her in the long run, especially since they are piecing together that the Cullen's were more manipulative then they thought. Enjoy the new chapter, dearies! Let me know what you think will happen, or if the Cullen's plans are even more devious than Jasper and Bella think. Who knows, maybe it will give me some ideas about future chapters!