Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer.

Chapter 6 (JPOV)

Edward and Emmett won't stop arguing on the drive to school. I try to tune them out and focus on the trees, the bricks in my wall, double-checking that everything I'm feeling is my own and nothing slipping through.

"What the hell are you yahoos bickering about?" I grind out, unable to take it anymore.

I'm more on edge than I'd like to be and it's taking more energy to maintain my shield. I look at the backseat through the rearview and contemplate asking Rose to pull over so I can dump them on the side of the highway. I reach into my pocket without thinking and stroke the clump of moss, trying to ignore the highly unpleasant fact that it calms me.

Edward snickers, looking at me sneakily and pulling his hand through his copper hair until it stands on end. I can't tell if I let that thought through but I know he knows this is not the time to fuck with me. The moss doesn't mean anything anyway, not to him.

"Yahoos? Emmett, did you hear that? Yahoos!" Edward crows.

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the century," Emmett responds, smacking Edward's chest with so much force that his head snaps back and breaks off the headrest.

It jostles Alice, knocking her arm down from where it rested under her chin, but she doesn't make a sound, just keeps staring out of the window, probably lost in a vision or she'd be twisting both of their ears off.

"Emmett!" Rose yells, "What the fuck is your problem?"

She takes one hand off the wheel to slap his leg, the only part of him she can reach from the front seat.

"Sorry, babe," says Emmett, still grinning.

"Anyway," huffs Edward, smoothing his hair, "Emmett thinks, falsely, may I add, that the new girl was talking about me when she said we were California 7 or 8s."

"Uh, duh," Emmett butts in, "Since if she saw me and Rose, she would definitely have rated us 20 out of 10. We're sexy as fuck, right babe?"

He flexes a huge arm until his bicep bulges, waggling his eyebrows at Rose through the mirror, who just rolls her eyes.

I have no idea what they're talking about.

"The new girl? Isabella Swan, Chief Swan's daughter? Yesterday at lunch some kids were giving her the lowdown on the freaky-hot Cullens and she said we were California 7 or 8s and she wondered what we were like before the plastic surgery! It was fucking priceless, you should have seen their faces," Emmett says, laughing and shaking his head, "You were off in la-la land and missed what's probably going to be the high point of the semester for "Shit The Humans Say. No way someone tops that."

"And I had her as a partner in Biology and she didn't even seem to notice my extreme physical attractiveness despite sitting 2 feet and 13 inches away from me," Edward adds, drumming his fingers against his chin, "though she did have a better than average grasp on 20th century scientific achievements… I think she was too nervous to notice much of anything, funny as that seems. Her blood was all afraid-smelling and her heart was beating so fast I thought she was sure to suffer a conniption. Perhaps I've gone too far with my quest to achieve supreme vampiric threatening-ness."

Alice pipes up now, "No, she was just like that the whole day, I think she must have some kind of anxiety problem, more-so than usual for humans. If it had been due to your, ahem, "supreme vampiric threatening-ness", it would have only been present during your Biology class with her."

"I have no idea how y'all can be aware enough of any of the humans to notice shit like that," I drawl, shaking my head.

Don't you? a sneaky voice whispers, you've been involved enough with one single human to influence her fucking emotions so she can get some sleep. You'd sure as hell notice shit about her.

Yeah, and I'm done with that shit. Not noticing anything about anyone.

I wonder if she goes to the high school. Sure is possible, young as she seemed. How would I even find her if she did? They all look the same to me, the only thing that makes her stand out is her emotions and there's no way I can let my wall down to get a sense without going batshit and probably killing her in the process if she even goes there.

Why the hell would I want to find her? I don't want to find her. The first time was just a coincidence, an accident.

Her emotions aren't the only thing that stands out, the sneaky voice says as I finger the moss in my pocket again, battling against what I want to do and how absolutely-fucked-up-red-light-means-NO all of this is. This is too fucking weird. I shouldn't have gone back. For some reason, her scent hit me so much harder the second time, burning itself into my sense-memory.

I am not going to try and sniff out some depressed, magical, fucking delicious-smelling human at the high school me and my family go to while we pretend not to be blood-sucking monsters that don't want to viciously murder everyone.

As we get out of the car and walk into the school, it occurs to me that this focus-on-one-human thing is pretty much just like getting ready for a hunt. It's a relief, since I know all about that and how to deal with it. I'll just go off for a few months again by myself and get myself under control. For a minute, it all makes sense.

Then I get confused all over again since I'm not getting that sharp, predatory, teeth-sharpened and blood-craving feeling.

I'm just… curious.

—

It's easier for me to be present than it was yesterday. I'm less overwhelmed by the chaotic crush of sensory overload. If I was dealing with human brain capacity, this adjustment probably would've taken weeks. As it is, I'm able to readjust myself with comparative ease to the perilously tempting aroma and wet pounding din of hundreds of hearts.

This is what I tell myself, at least. On another, somewhat buried, layer of my thoughts, I'm well aware that part of the ease is due to the distraction posed by trying to find the girl.

It's hard for us to know exactly how human minds work due to the general muddiness of memory recall before the transformation, but vampire minds are incredibly complicated and powerful. A vampire brain can simply achieve things of which a human's is incapable.

I once saw Emmett play four video games at a time on four different TVs using one hand of foot for each controller. His next goal is incorporating a fifth for his tongue to use and I have no doubt he'll be successful.

It's how we've all learned to block Edward's mind reading with nearly perfect success rates. I wouldn't be living with them if it wasn't possible and I doubt anyone else could. The repeated invasion of privacy would be unbearable for any vampire, so much do we desire and need autonomy as apex predators. It makes him extremely valuable as an asset against outsiders.

It's also the reason for the terrible risks and eventual consequences for our kind as we gain more years. Madness abounds.

As I feel no need to take a break and destroy the landscape, I head to the lunchroom after class. I haven't gotten a whiff of the unique scent I've been waiting for in the halls during the first few periods but plan on using the lunch hour to try and sift through the hulking conglomerate posed by every member of the student body cramming into one room.

Once I've satisfied my curiosity by determining with certainty that she is or isn't here, I'll be able to put her out of my mind.

I sit down at our table and wait for the rest of the Cullens to arrive.

Emmett and Rosalie saunter in after a few minutes and go through the food line. I see Rosalie slap his hand after he tries to pour ranch on the fruit salads they've picked up and swallow a chuckle.

"Hey, dude," he says as they plunk the trays down on the table.

Rosalie slides some fruit and cutlery across the table to me and I open the plastic packet, grabbing the fork and pretending to eat a piece.

"I'm sick of this shit and it's only the second day," Rosalie grumbles, spearing a grape.

"Aw, come on, babe. It's not that bad, they're always doing funny shit, it's better than TV. Besides, we can't stop going to a school until I've witnessed a swirly." Emmett says dreamily.

"That is not a condition of anything, stop bringing it up," she scoffs.

"And don't forget," Edward says, sliding into a seat next to me, "Today is Jasper's special day."

"I'm not doing that crap," I growl at him, narrowing my eyes, " I didn't agree to anything and i don't have to even if I did."

"Oh, yes, you are," Alice says, following behind Edward and taking a seat on my other side, "In fact, I'm going to go ask those kids when they need you."

We all watch as she makes her way over to the table. Strangely, it's not the beady-eyed kid that she addresses, but the new student. I'm instantly suspicious when she asks to borrow her phone charger. Alice doesn't forget anything, ever. She's always immaculately, infuriatingly, prepared for every possible scenario.

The girl is instantly mistrustful of Alice, as well. Her facial expressions are triflingly easy to interpret, even for a human. The corner of her mouth tips up and her eyebrows knit together for a moment and I almost expect her to refuse but she doesn't.

The beady eyed kid can't even speak, leaving the dark-haired girl with glasses to tell Alice that they'll come by my class and collect me for the interview that they don't realize won't be happening.

Then Alice asks the new girl when she's having her interview. I can hear the change in her heart rate from across the room. It speeds up, pumping faster and louder than anyone else's apart from a boy across the room who is trying to hide the erection in his pants under the table. The moist sloshing seems to absolutely fill my ears for a microsecond, dazing me slightly before I snap out of it.

She doesn't seem to want this interview any more than me, perhaps even less than me.

It doesn't seem like she's able to say no, or anything at all. She sits there, frozen, heart hammering out of control.

I'm suddenly, confusingly, furious at Alice.

Something hard bumps into my shin under the table.

"Chill out," whispers Emmett under his breath, shaking his head and looking confused.

I realize belatedly than I've dug five grooves into the table with my fingernails and silence the low growl in my throat.

What the fuck?

I dimly hear Alice saying good-bye to the table and am strangely disappointed that I missed the girl's response. I think back through my memory and listen to her choked response. She tried to refuse but everyone steamrolled her into agreeing.

Suddenly, uncontrollably, my nostrils flare and my muscles tense for a quick second before releasing.

It's her. She's here. I resist the urge to fly out of my seat and follow the scent. On a far away, sublimated level of my thoughts, I'm amused at my earlier insistence that my curiosity would be so easily quenched.

Alice sits down next to me and I realize the girl's scent is wafting off her skin but is most concentrated in the charger she's holding in one small white hand.

She looks at me with a knowing twinkle in her eye and dangles it in front of me.

"Want this?"

I stop myself from snatching from her and press my hands onto my jeans trying not to tear the denim.

"No?" I say, hoping that it sounds like I don't care and don't desperately want to grab it and shove it up my nose.

I narrow my eyes at her, realizing exactly what this divergence from our normal vampire-human interaction accomplished.

Of course I'm doing the fucking interview now.

She smirks at me and tucks the charger into her purse.

"What the hell is going on?" asks Rosalie, looking from Alice to me with a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing!" chirps Alice, "Just doing my job to protect the family."

"And you don't think we need to now about what the hell just happened? And don't tell me nothing, we aren't stupid."

Rosalie looks like she's one step away from strangling Alice. Emmett slips an arm around her waist and slowly kisses her temple.

"C'mon, Rosie, let's get to class," he says, pulling her up with him, "I'm sure Alice will fill us in on the way home."

—

"Bella's already waiting in the library, go grab Jasper and get over there before she runs away. I can't believe she agreed, this is going to be awesome!" a girl says out in the hallway.

"By myself?"

Pathetic.

Beady-eyed kid and glasses girl walk into the room and hand the teacher a note excusing me.

I consider staring them down and refusing to move but the lure of seeing the girl wins and I follow them out and down the hallway. Neither of the kids speak. Both of their hearts are pounding.

My fingertips itch slightly with the momentary desire to grab their necks and slam their heads into the wall.

We walk through the library doors and toward the back where I see her sitting. I could smell her down the hallway and the scent grows stronger and more intoxicating, billowing toward me.

I take a moment to study her, finally able to satisfy my curiosity. She's extremely pale, unhealthy, even. Long and thick dark hair, delicate cheekbones, small nose. Her chapped bottom lip is flushed dark pink and there are tiny teeth marks all along the surface from biting it. Almost invisible freckles are sprinkled across her cheeks and nose. Brown eyes, wet and velvet, like something melting.

Something twists together strangely, almost uncomfortably, in my chest; what I can only assume is the profound relief of matching her emotions and scent with their progenitor. A final puzzle piece snapping into place that will release me from this fixation.

Her heart is beating much, much too fast. I can hear her twisting her hands together under the table. She grabs something around her wrist and it snaps against her skin. She's done it three more times before we sit down and her heart has slowed a fraction.

I want to use my power to calm her but don't dare trying to project through air. I haven't practiced with my wall up enough to be confident I wouldn't lost control entirely from the strain. I might be able to maintain a small area on my hands and… just brush against her.

"Jasper?" says glasses girl, "You can sit down."

I take the empty seat next to Bella. Is it short for something? I shuffle through my memory and it clicks. Ah. Emmett and Edward mentioned her this morning. Isabella.

Glasses girl clicks her pen and takes out a fresh sheet of paper.

"So, Bella, we pretty much know the basics already but why don't you tell us a little about yourself and then we'll do Jasper. What's your favorite subject and why?"

"English," she says softly, fingering the band around her wrist, "I guess I just like reading."

I'm irritated that she didn't say no to this when it obviously makes her feel worse. I reach down to my left into my backpack and rummage through it for a moment, gathering the energy of my my calming projection around my right hand. As I straighten, I strategically brush past her soft, warm wrist with the back of my hand.

It takes effect immediately. Her heart rate slows rapidly and her shaking hands still. I can feel the quieting still the air around her. She turns her head quickly, capturing my gaze with her soft, wide eyes, and looks at me, blinking slowly.

Then, just as suddenly as she calmed down, Bella pushes her chair out so hard it wobbles slightly, threatening to fall over, and grabs her backpack before almost running out of the library.

（／_＼）

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