-MAISIE-


On my nineteenth birthday, I woke up at midnight. This was not my choice. It was Jasper's doing.

I woke to him shaking my shoulder. When I pried an eye open, I realized he had turned the bedroom light on. I rubbed my face, trying to get adjusted to being woken up in the middle of the night. "What?"

"Happy birthday," he told me softly. I felt his hand smoothing the hair away from my face.

"We're the same age now," I murmured, referring to his human age. Jasper was changed when he was nineteen himself, freezing him in time at that age. I heard him chuckle, his breath washing over my cheek as he leaned down to kiss my cheek.

"Give or take a hundred-fifty years or so." I motioned vaguely at the light with my hand. Jasper cut my drift, turning it off before I was even done. He was back at my side in the same instance. I caught his hand, pressing it to my lips.

"Don't brag, old man. Why are you waking me up at midnight, anyway?"

"I wanted to be the first one to tell you 'happy birthday'." Just then, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. Jasper pressed it into my hand. When I unlocked it, I saw two text messages sent almost simultaneously: one from Jessica Stanley, my best friend from high school, and one from Alice, Jasper's sister.

"How kind of Alice, she let you have this one." Jasper laughed.

"She let me win for once. Go back to sleep, birthday girl."

"Come lay with me, not-birthday-boy." That was all the convincing it took for Jasper to slide into bed with me. I fitted myself against his side, resting my head on his chest. It was the middle of the night, and though he had woken me entirely, I was still tired. I fell back into sleep with ease, cocooned in Jasper's arms.


Unlike in Forks, no one at school knew it was my birthday. In the middle of my math class, I felt a sudden wave of missing them.

Had I been at Forks High, Tyler and Mike would have serenaded me off-key. Lauren and Jess would have presented me with a Hostess cupcake with a candle in it at lunch. My parents would have made my favorite dinner for me, while Gunner complained because he didn't like Mom's stir fry, but it was my favorite. Esme would have made me brownies.

Instead, I was sitting in a college algebra class. Cami, the girl who sat beside me in class, asked me for a pencil like she always did on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That girl had a whole case of colored gel pens, but not one pencil. Otherwise, I didn't talk to anyone at school that day.

I had successfully bummed myself out by the end of my class. At least math was the only one that day, so I didn't have even more idle time sitting around with my woe-is-me birthday thoughts. I was actually thankful that Thursday was 'homework' day—a tradition the four of us living in Alaska had developed. Edward and I both attended Alaska Pacific University in person, while Jasmine was taking classes online. Jasper had dropped his current college classes to devote his time to research, based off Carlisle and Garrett's combined knowledge, Peter and Charlotte's letters, and things he uncovered through really old books.

Really, we all just lounged around Edward and Jasmine's living room, doing our respective homework between bursts of watching TV. After class, that's immediately where I headed. I was ready to sling my backpack and find Jasper—he and Edward and Jasmine were usually playing some kind of game outside while they waited for me—but there was a surprise when I opened the door.

"Alice!" I yelled. True, I had seen her at Christmas, but I didn't realize how much I had missed her since then until I saw her smiling face. I threw myself at her, almost overwhelming her tiny frame. "I thought you were in Paris!"

"You should know better than to think I would miss your birthday," she chastised me.

"Or me!" Emmett's voice drew my attention across the room, where he and Rosalie were. I let go of Alice to hug both of them as well.

"I didn't know turning nineteen got you so many privileges." I could feel tears stinging behind my eyes. They surprised me; I didn't expect to be so bowled over by a surprise party. I blinked them away, watching Alice start to parade in brightly wrapped presents.

"And why would we not celebrate our favorite mostly-human little sister's birthday?" Emmett gave me a solid slap on the back that, while affectionate, nearly sent me over. I caught myself on the back of an armchair.

It hurt more than I would liked to have admitted, that smack from Emmett. I hoped it wouldn't bruise, because I didn't want Emmett to feel bad. Since Carlisle had announced that I was considerably vampire-like, Emmett had assumed that meant I could stand his form of affection: roughhousing.

While it was true that I was stronger and faster now, I was also in the middle of the second week between blood doses. Which, for me, meant that I was tired, and my muscles were achy. Surprisingly, the symptoms of my blood withdrawal were remarkably similar to flu symptoms.

But for Emmett's benefit, I ignored the throb his palm left in my shoulder. Jasper's head perked up, meeting my eye over the cake he was decorating with candles. I had spent three birthdays with the Cullens so far, and every year, they had gotten me some kind of treat even though I was the only one who would eat it.

I shook my head at Jasper when he raised an eyebrow in question, knowing he was likely feeling a twin pain in his own shoulder. His gift of empathy was a strange, but wonderful, thing to me. I knew that he could feel my physical and emotional pain, echoes of my own feelings. Jasper's mouth twisted to the side, and I knew he was more concerned than I was, but he didn't press me on it.

He finished sticking my nineteen candles in the cake, lighting them before they could start melting. Alice, much more gently than Emmett, guided me into an armchair before pushing it close to the coffee table. Everyone—Edward, Jasmine, Emmett, Rosalie, Alice, and Jasper—gathered around to sing.

I had the weirdest sensation watching the candlelight flicker across their faces, specifically Jasmine's. It caught in her eyes, which were a dark amber shade as she adjusted to the animal blood diet the Cullens kept. The light played over the planes of her cheekbones; it shown against her dark curls. Before I had even blown the candles out, I had realized something.

Jasmine and I, we were in the same boat. She was just a step ahead of me, already a vampire, not by her choice but by Maria's. When Maria took her, Jasmine ended up with a clean break from her human life.

But I was clinging to mine. My break was going to be messy, and it was going to hurt.

I had a weird sinking and soaring feeling as I blew those nineteen candles out. Sinking, because this was the first birthday without my family—my blood family. Soaring, because my new family had rallied around to make me happy. Hell, Alice had flown in from Paris.

I suddenly didn't know what to feel anymore.


At home, after my party, Jasper ran a bath for me. He had it memorized; the exact temperature, the combination of Epsom salts. These baths were what got me through the home stretch of the second week, before Sunday rolled around and I could have blood again.

I sat cross-legged on the closed toilet seat while Jasper swished his hand around the water to help dissolve the salts. "It's ready."

When Jasper walked by me, I turned my face upward. He kissed me before slipping out of the bathroom, leaving me to soak. I undressed in front of the mirror, craning my neck to check if Emmett's hand had left a bruise. It didn't, and I sighed in relief.

Sinking into the warm, salted water always did wonders for my aching muscles. As time wore on between doses of blood, the symptoms got worse. Body aches, headaches. Nausea, because my body certainly did not want human food, even though I forced myself to eat it. My throat became itchy, too. According to Jasper, the itching throat was not all too different from how he felt when he went too long between feedings.

I closed my eyes and held my breath, letting myself sink entirely under the water. This was the only place I let myself think about the darkest places my mind liked to wander.

If I became a vampire, who would do it? We can't break the treaty with the Quileute. But I'm selfish; I only want Jasper to finish what Maria started. How would we pass off my disappearance? I don't want the Cullens to get in trouble. Gunner. What about Gunner? He would know the truth. Would he be able to keep it a secret for me?

The thoughts ran through my head until I couldn't hold my breath anymore. Lungs on fire, I pushed my head above water.


Do you have a passport?

Jasper's questioned buzzed through to my phone while I was at work. I was shelving books, luckily, so I could take a moment to text him back.

No?

I re-shelved three more books before another text came through.

Have you ever gotten hepatitis A & B, typhoid, cholera, yellow fever, and/or rabies vaccines?

What the hell was Jasper getting at? I took a chance, tapping his name so I could call him.

"Hey," Jasper answered. Before I could say anything, he was talking. "Carlisle reminded me of something. He bought an island off the coast of South America; you can get there from Rio de Janeiro. The housekeeping staff is…knowledgeable about our kind. Carlisle and Esme have heard them talk of local legends, of humans who cohabitate with vampires."

"Oh," I breathed out. This could be a lead. This could be answers. "And you want to go?"

"Not until the summer, so we don't affect your classes. That gives us time to get a passport in order for you."

"Um, also the shots. I don't want to test fate and see if the venom in my blood safeguards me against yellow fever carrying mosquitoes."

"You do want to go, then? It won't really be a vacation. We might have to hike deep into the jungle to find the people behind the legends." He was trying to hide it, but I could hear the excitement in Jasper's voice.

"Duh. First of all, the Amazon Rainforest is cool. Second of all…" I let the sentence fall off. If I said it out loud, what if it didn't come true? What if it was just another frustrating dead end?

"Alice!" I whisper-shouted, suddenly thinking of her. She had been trying to help us with her visions, but there were so many variables involved that she could only give us possible scenarios, nothing concrete.

"She's sitting beside me, looking as we speak." Emmett and Rosalie had left, back to New York, the day after my birthday. Alice had stayed behind to spend a few weeks with all of us before her next adventure.

I could see Alice in my mind's eye, the way her big eyes went unfocused, her jaw falling slack, so her lips were ever-so-slightly parted. Physically in the present, consciousness in the future.

"Let me know. I better get off my phone before I end up fired."

"I'll text you. I love you."

I was barely able to tell him that I loved him, too, before the line disconnected.

South America.

South.

America.

I couldn't let myself get too excited. I made myself focus on shelving the books in the right spots. The last thing I needed was to be called out for ruining the Dewey decimal system.

But.

How could I not be excited? This could really be something. Something hidden deep in the forest, an old practice that we thought was almost gone from the world. I would hike a million miles without question if I could just find out I might have another option.

I was sure Edward had heard this in my thoughts before, even though I hadn't even told Jasper. To Edward's credit, he was incredibly discrete. He only ever voiced other's thoughts when he thought it was necessary. Adjusting to having a mind reader around all the time was hard for me, and I wasn't as good at guarding my thoughts as I probably should have been.

So, I'm sure Edward did hear me thinking about something impossible. I had no idea how it would happen, what it would take, but deep down, I was secretly hoping there might be something else that we could do. Something that would allow me to stay as I was now, in this in between state between human and vampire.

It was a selfish desire. I knew that. These thoughts were bred from the fact that I didn't want to give up my human life, my family, until it was entirely unavoidable. I wanted to see Ava grow up, firsthand, for as long as I could. I didn't want to be Gunner's dirty secret, still alive and well, while the rest of our family believed me to be dead. I tried not to think about how impossible it was. I tried not to think about it at all.

But damn. I would be lying if I said I didn't want it.


A/N: Y'all. I'm heart broken. I got the FUNNIEST spam review on the last chapter, and I really wanted everyone to read it. The spam was about alien rattlesnakes and it was probably some kind of word vomit from one of those robot script writing simulators or whatever, but I was cracking up reading it. I really wanted everyone else to read it, too, because I loved it so much.

Alas, FF seems to have deleted it, because it's not there anymore. I had full intentions to leave it up because I wanted y'all to see it to. Such is life, I guess.

The alien rattlesnake had a tissue from a 1534 Lord from Wales, though, so you know he was a classy dude.

Anyway. The plot thickens just like the humidity in South America. I think we all know what characters we're going to encounter relatively soon!