-Chapter Forty-Seven-


Maisie's second dose of venom seemed to limit its effects to enhancing her strength and other senses. This was a great relief to Jasper, that after the initial dosing, there was no pain or fevers for her. It had become a habit of his to check her emotions even more regularly, fearful despite Garrett's information he had provided, that it would all take a darker turn at any moment.

She was, blessedly, still mostly human. The car wreck was evidence enough of that. Though her blood held no appeal to Jasper anymore, the fact that the newborn still reacted was oddly comforting to Jasper.

Carlisle had been full of praise following it.

"The feel of Maisie's blood on your hand didn't bother you?" Carlisle had asked. "I told you, Jasper, you've made tremendous progress of late."

Had it been Gunner's blood instead, though, Jasper was certain it would not have had the same ending. Perhaps it would. He wasn't sure. Jasper had been holding his breath, after all. But did it make a difference, because he loved Maisie? Or, without the scent lighting his throat on fire, would touching a human's blood still be inconsequential to him?

He couldn't tell. There were too many questions in his world, and most of them Jasper had no desire to answer.

As had become a theme in his life, there was a new issue at hand.

"She's rather problematic, isn't she?" Rosalie was lounging on the couch, thumbing through the NYU spring semester course catalog. She was referring to Maisie's slip in confirming Gunner's glimpse of the red eyes of the newborn they swerved to avoid hitting just a week ago. Surprisingly, there was no malice in Rosalie's voice.

Something had shifted in Rose's and Maisie's relationship. Jasper wasn't sure what but he could feel it. Added to Maisie's usual respect admiration was an undercurrent of sympathy and protectiveness. Rosalie was no longer irritated, though sometimes the jealousy was still present. More and more, there was a growing fondness buried deep within her.

"Would you lie to Edward, if the tables were turned?" Jasper asked. One flick of her wrist and a raise of an eyebrow was all the answer Jasper needed. Chuckling, he rephrased.

"Would you lie to me, then? Or Ali?" This time, Rosalie pursed her lips.

"You know I wouldn't. I suppose it doesn't matter, at least not yet. Edward said the boy hasn't connected anything to our family. He can hardly see what's right in front of him, like most humans."

Gunner may not have put two and two together, but would he, if he saw Garrett? The nomad had kept largely to himself since arriving in Forks. He didn't venture into town with any of the others, the way Peter and Charlotte would. And when Garrett hunted, it was far, far away.

Alice came blurring down the stairs. "If you lied to me, ever, I would never forgive you. We've got a visitor."

An uncertain knock announced the presence of a guest moments after Alice had. Jasper knit his eyebrows together. Why was Kate here? Alice only shrugged at him and waited for Esme to get the door.

"Kate!" Esme exclaimed, pulling her into her arms for a hug. She was too pleased to see their cousin to question her presence in Forks. "What do we owe the honor?"

She must have travelled on foot from Alaska. Her blonde hair was wild around her face, with some debris in the form of small bits of foliage dotted throughout. Kate's mouth was set in a determined line; her eyes black as night from who knew how many days without feeding.

"I haven't seen Irina since the summer, and Tanya neglected to let us know how things have progressed here. I came as soon as I got it all out of her."

"You didn't shock her too much, did you?" Alice asked, clearly amused. Jasper knew better than any of their siblings how Alice had disapproved of Edward's pseudo-relationship with Tanya. Kate gave one small, nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

"She'll live."

The rest of the Jasper's family and friends began to drift toward the living room. Peter and Charlotte emerged from their guest room; Edward and Emmett came inside, covered in a dusting of snow, from chopping wood. Carlisle and Garrett abandoned their poker game in the kitchen.

Jasper can't help the smirk that overtakes his lips when Garrett sees Kate. The attraction is nearly overpowering. If it weren't for how upset Kate was, he might have laughed out loud over it. Behind him, he hears Garrett whisper, "Who is that?"

"Our cousin Kate, from Alaska," Carlisle explained, striding forward to envelop Kate in a hug of his own. Though Kate allowed both Esme and Carlisle to embrace her, the anger was still roiling under her skin.

"I came as soon as I heard," Kate reiterated again. "Where is Maisie?"

A small snippet of forest away, in her home. If Jasper listened carefully, he could hear Maisie reading bedtime stories to Ava. He could picture the two sisters in his mind, blonde heads bent close together over the storybook.

"She's safe," Jasper reassured her. "We all keep a close eye on her. As do the Quileute."

"I remember the female wolf defending her at the wedding. They're friends, then?" There was a collective nod making its way through the room.

"Freaky, huh? I think we're way cooler, but apparently we weren't enough. Maise needed more supernatural beings in her life."

Kate pursed her lips, then nodded. Jasper could only guess at the thoughts running through his cousin's mind. A quick look at Edward let Jasper know the thoughts must not have been too kind; his brother was looking sufficiently chastised, his eyes trained on the floor. It was obvious that Tanya had learned the information about Maisie and their current situation from Edward.

"Irina has always been prone to throwing fits," Kate lamented. "But I never thought she would do something like this. I am so, so sorry, and I'm not leaving until all of it's resolved."

"That's certainly your choice," Carlisle said gently. "But not an obligation. I hope you understand that."

"Right now, all I know is that I'm furious at my sisters for their selfishness and their stupidity and that I'm staying." The conviction in her voice left no room for arguing. Alice immediately offered to share her room with Kate, as the Cullens were out of guest rooms with already accommodating Peter, Charlotte, and Garrett. They didn't typically have guests, obviously.

Turning to Jasper, Kate softened her tone. "Will you bring her over soon? I would like to apologize to her."

"Of course," Jasper promised. He knew that Kate had been Maisie's favorite at the wedding. She would be excited to know that Kate was in Forks, he was sure. He wouldn't have to wait long to tell Maisie, either; a text buzzed through on his phone moments later.

Leah says there's a new vampire in town?

It's only Kate, Jasper typed back. Unless they know something we don't?

Kate's here?! This was only the first in Maisie's texts, coming broken and shortened now in her excitement.

Leah said whoever it was didn't go near their land.

I'm sure it was just Kate.

No one else would realize.

How long is she here for?

Jasper smiled at Maisie's enthusiasm, trying to answer her questions while still keeping up with the conversation going on between Carlisle and Kate. His father was giving Kate a synopsis of their current situation.

Kate crossed her arms while she listened, head tilted to the side. One of the leaves stuck in her hair brushed against her cheek. When Carlisle finished his run-down of information, Kate shook her head and gave a little huff.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, huh?" She teased, raising an eyebrow at Jasper, the black of her eyes twinkling like obsidian rock.


Were it not for the current situation at hand, Jasper was certain he never would have found himself at Mike Newton's New Year's Eve party. As things stood, however, he thought it was reasonable that he had reservations about Maisie attending the party alone.

In the full moonlight, he watched Maisie shake her hair free from her helmet. With her car still undergoing repairs at a rate that annoyed Rosalie to no end, Jasper and his motorcycle had become a primary mode of transportation to Maisie.

"Oh, look," she said, pointing to two other motorcycles parked on the lawn. "You started a trend."

Jasper's motorcycle was a dark, sleek thing. This pair of bikes were more rugged, he had to be honest, and they reeked of werewolf. "I'll bet you ten bucks that they belong to Jacob and Bella."

"No way! Bella can't even walk in a straight line." Maisie did not know how to drive Jasper's motorcycle on her own. She had told him several times that she had no desire to learn to ride alone, insisting instead that she was perfectly happy being a passenger.

"You're going to owe me ten bucks for sure with that mindset." Jasper rested his hand on the small of Maisie's back, guiding her into the front door of Mike Newton's house. He would like to think that he wasn't typically the overbearing type—Maisie had shown him, time and again, that she was capable of looking after and defending herself.

Shooting a vampire.

Fighting a newborn.

Making a true friendship and alliance not only with a coven of vampires but a pack of shapeshifters.

If any human had a fighting chance of surviving being thrust into the world of the supernatural, it was Maisie Thompson.

This gathering, though. At one point in his life, a party not entirely unlike this one was something that Jasper taught the newborns he trained to look for. With this many humans in one place, with music blaring and alcohol making its rounds, it was all to easy to pluck one or two away from the others without anyone noticing.

And if Maisie and Gunner's recent run-in with a newborn told Jasper anything, it was that Maria was apparently hard at work making a consumable back-up army so that she didn't lose any of the numbers in her true forces in the South.

Maisie leading him through the house in search of her friends reaffirmed to Jasper that the progress Carlisle thought he had made was false. Since he no longer went to Forks High every day, he had lost the 'nose-blindness' he had previously built up. Here, in this crowded, dark house with the pulsing music was igniting a wildfire in his throat.

His reaction must have been strong enough for Maisie to pick up on it; she altered her course, pulling him behind her out the back door. They were alone in the backyard, their only company each other and the cold winter air.

"Hey, are you okay?" Jasper took a deep, cleansing breath of thin, icy air before answering.

"I forgot how humans other than you smell, apparently," he whispered to her. Jasper pulled her close, inhaling the scent of her hair. As always, Maisie's mild floral scent was able to right him.

"Hey, love birds!" Jessica Stanley's voice called out above them. Jasper and Maisie tipped their heads back at the same time, to see Jessica leaning a tad too far out of a second story window. "You do know you're at a party with other people, right?"

Someone's hands—Mike's—closed around Jessica's hips, moving her away from the window. She giggled as he shifted her, the alcohol she was drinking sloshing out of the cup and the window. Jasper scooted Maisie out of the way of the falling liquid.

"You look pretty occupied yourself!" Maisie called back to her friend, just before Mike shut his window. Jasper guessed that was his bedroom.

Laughing, Maisie turned back to him. "We don't have to stay if it's too much for you, you know."

"You were excited about this," Jasper argued. "I'll be fine, so long as I stay near you."

"Well, I won't argue about that."

Alice had already looked into the future and reassured him that nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen at the house party. Though Jasper had been trusting in his sister's visions wholeheartedly for decades now, he still couldn't shake the feeling that he should be there with Maisie that night.

And not twenty minutes later, a drunken Gunner gave purpose to Jasper's intuition.

"The bad thing about all this," Maisie had been telling Jasper, nursing a cup of soda. She didn't drink, and obviously neither did he. "Is that I have to pretend to drink for both of us."

Gunner, though, had been drinking. He got to the party before Maisie and Jasper, and she had been watching her brother closely as he moved through the house with a constantly refilled cup in his hand.

Jasper watched the younger Thompson sibling make his way through the crowd, following an arrow straight path toward his sister.

"Hey," he slurred. Jasper realized Gunner had grown recently; he must have been nearly as tall as Edward. Gunner angled himself so that he was between Jasper and his sister. The alcohol practically rolled off him, in both his blood and his breath. "I needa talk to you."

Alcohol wasn't the only thing roiling under Gunner's skin. Waves of anger and betrayal were crashing through him. Maisie knew her brother well enough to read his mood. Her face crumpled in on itself.

"What's wrong?" She asked, her voice low underneath the music. "Why are you upset?"

"Where are your keys?" Jasper interjected. If they were going to have some kind of argument, it should be private, he thought. Gunner turned his head, sending a glare over his shoulder. Before Gunner could say anything, Maisie grabbed his arm.

"Give them to me." Her tone was soft, gentle. The same she used with Ava, when their little sister was on the verge of throwing a fit. Gunner fished his keys out of his pocket and placed them in Maisie's open palm immediately.

With her free hand, Maisie took her brother's. She looked over his shoulder, mouthing to Jasper a pair of names, Bella and Jacob. Her expression let him know it was meant to be a question.

Jasper nodded at Maisie. "I'll find out."

He watched her lead Gunner back through the crowd, waiting for the dull thud of Gunner's car doors. Then he turned toward the see of people, forcing himself to focus on Jacob's scent. Jasper hoped it would be enough to drown out the blood of all the humans in the warm, crowded house.


A/N: I hope you are all having wonderful weeks! I promise you won't have to wait long for the next chapter. I broke it here because it would have been really long other wise, and I also switched back into Maisie's first-person perspective for this next part. Kate's here now!

I planned from the beginning to have the Denali Coven eventually break. Kate has joined sides with the Cullens; we already know Irina is working with Maria. Tanya is attempting to stay neutral. We'll see what Carmen and Eleazar decide to do. I haven't quite decided yet. But I wanted Kate to come to Forks because I'm as much Kate and Garrett trash as anyone...

Anyway, I hope you have been enjoying! This next chapter has a lot going on, so prepare yourselves!