-MAISIE-


Come with me to Port Angeles.

That was all Jasper's text sent, but I knew exactly what business we had in Port Angeles. Jasmine, though very much a real person, was no longer officially a real person. Just a little complication that came along with becoming a vampire.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that the Cullen family had a contact for creating false documents for them. I mean, who knows how many countless falsified credentials Carlisle has used to get hired at various hospitals. What I was surprised about was the fact that Jasper, of all the Cullens, was the one who handled all the business with procuring these documents.

While I knew that Jasper was charming—God, did I know he was charming, with that Southern drawl and his rare, slow smiles—I also knew that he struggled the most with just generally being around humans. To say I was curious to see Jasper in this capacity was an understatement. Plus, with Mom and Dad at work, and Ava and Gunner both at school, there was no need for the 'You live with Jasper in Alaska, you spend plenty of time with him as it is' lecture I had already heard countless times from my parents in the week I had spent back in Forks.

Suffice it to say, it did not take much convincing for me to leave my half-folded laundry on my bed in favor of riding on the back of Jasper's motorcycle.

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked when Jasper picked me up. He handed me my helmet, watching me slip it over my head and rearrange my hair.

"A business meeting, of sorts. I think you ought to meet my… friend, J. Jenks."

Talking to Jasper while he drove was nearly impossible, what with the wind from our velocity and the helmets. I was no longer scared to ride with him, so instead of tucking my face between his shoulder blades, I watched the highway blur around me and wondered who this mysterious Jenks was that we were meeting.

Jasper droves us to a nondescript office building in a side of Port Angeles I had never seen. To say it was in a rough neighborhood would have been the understatement of the century. The gray exterior was bare of any kind of name or even address. Though we were alone on the sidewalk, from what I could tell, I found myself moving closer to Jasper. Sensing my unease, he wrapped an arm around my waist as he led me forward.

"You're perfectly safe here, mi corazon." Despite the spreading warmth in my chest that followed his words, I still wasn't entirely convinced. I was certain I was only safe in this place because Jasper was with me.

Still, I followed Jasper into the building. There was no receptionist at the front desk. Really, the whole building seemed as deserted as the block it stood on. Up a flight of silent stairs, around an eerily quiet corner, and Jasper had me standing in front of an unlabeled door.

He rapped his knuckles against the wood, and a man's voice answered: "Come in."

I peeked up at Jasper, unsure, but he nodded for me to open the door.

The man sitting behind the shoddy clapboard desk did not fit his surroundings whatsoever. He was middle-aged, but his short, dark hair was the only give away to that. Though it was peppered with gray, his dark skin was smooth and unlined. Unlike his surroundings, his tailored suit radiated an air of wealth.

"Mr. Jasper," the man greeted in his deep voice, standing and reaching across the table to shake Jasper's hand. If he had any reaction to Jasper's cool skin, he didn't show it. "You're looking well as ever. And you've brought a guest. Who is this?"

"Maisie," Jasper introduced for me. "She's very dear to me, as well as to my family."

The emphasis Jasper placed on that final word seemed to affect the man before me. When he offered his hand for me to shake, I could see the tremble to his fingers. He squeezed my hand more tightly than I expected, surprised, I guessed, that I was as warm as him.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Maisie. My business partners know me as J. Jenks." He withdrew his hand from mine, reaching into his suit jacket. From within, he produced an unmarked manila envelope.

"Please, have a seat, Mr. Jasper. As always, I hope the documents are to your liking." Jenks swept his hand outward, motioning to the over-stuffed chairs before the desk. Jasper pulled mine out for me, and I sat carefully on the edge while he occupied the other one. Jenks, I noticed, did not sit down.

Instead, he clasped his hands before him, fingers intertwined. I watched the way he held them so tightly, the color began to blanche around his knuckles. Looking up at his face, I realized Jenks had been watching me, too. I smiled at him, hoping it might ease some of the fear I was sure Jasper invoking in him. But this seemed to only take him aback, making his face go a shade paler as well as he quickly diverted his eyes.

I was so intrigued by J. Jenks that I didn't even bother to take a peek at the documents Jasper was analyzing. He must have approved, though. Jasper pulled an envelope of his own from his pocket, filled with money I was sure, and offered it to Jenks across the table.

"Thank you," was all that Jasper said about the state of the documents he slid back inside the envelope. And just like that, it seemed like we were done. Jasper extended a hand to me, helping me from my seat on that lumpy, red chair.

"Always the finest work for my best clients," Jenks said, attempting a smile that wavered on his lips and didn't come close to reaching his eyes.

"Thank you!" I reiterated again, because I felt bad for the man. I wasn't even sure what I was thanking him for, but I smiled at him one more time over my shoulder as Jasper led me out of the room. This time, the smile he gave me was almost genuine, even if fear did still shine from his eyes.

"Jasper. Whitlock." I chastised Jasper on the stairs, whispering his name. "You were torturing that poor man."

"I've been doing business with J since the eighties," he countered. "If he was faint of heart, he would've perished decades ago."

"You don't have to make him so scared, though!"

"I brought Edward with me once," Jasper told me out on the street, tucking the envelope into his own jacket the way Jenks had concealed it earlier. "Just to get a read on the man's thoughts. Medical experimentation, cult, some kind of underground Botox ring—plenty of far-fetched, off-base ideas about the fact that I don't age. But 'vampire' was never a word that crossed his thoughts, and we need to keep it that way. As long as he fears me, he'll respect us."

Sure, I could see the value in that statement, but it still had me pouting as we climbed back onto the motorcycle. "This is a favor for Edward, anyway. Jasmine needs some kind of identity to use, and Esme was kind enough to loan her maiden name to her."

I didn't see the documents until we were back at my house, but sure enough, the birth certificate, social security card, driver's license, and passport all bore the name Jasmine Platt on them.

I had recently gotten my passport, too, for our upcoming trip to South America. Only, mine was done the legal way, with no shady meetings with a man in an expensive suit.

"I guess I never considered all the details that go into the way y'all live." I told Jasper. He sat before me on my bed, cross legged and at ease. A completely different picture than the impassive face he wore in Jenk's office.

"Whitlock, Hale, Brandon, Cullen, Masen, Platt, McCarty…we've been trading surnames for decades now. Having contacts such as Jenks makes the process easier. He's valuable to us."

I considered his words. There was merit in them, sure, but was scaring the poor guy really necessary?

"Respecting someone usually gets you respect back, you know."

"I never said I didn't respect J," Jasper countered. He leaned forward, catching my chin in his hand and gently guiding my face up. "But you humans are fickle things. Respect does not always equate loyalty, does it? Look at any coup, any power move, in history. Respect is never the issue. You know our laws, Maisie. I cannot afford J. Jenks to become disloyal."

"Why did you take me there with you?" I asked him. Jasper was close enough to me that I could feel his breath wash over my face.

"I need you to see all aspects of potentially leading a life like mine."


To my surprise, I didn't have to bother Gunner too much to convince him to get a tattoo with me. Maybe he knew how serious I was about it, that morning I woke him up. Maybe it was just because Leah told him it was a good idea. Who knows?

Less than a week after I had gone to Port Angeles with Jasper to meet J. Jenks, I found myself there again, this time sitting in a tattoo parlor. Leah and Alice came with us; Edward and Jasper were on a mission to retrieve Emmett and Rosalie from the airport. Alice herself had only gotten to Forks that morning.

"You know Mom's gonna kill us." I rolled my eyes at Gunner.

"Me, maybe. But you're the prodigal son. You're fine."

"Yeah, unless it gets infected, since you don't have special healing agents." Leah teased from beside Gunner, planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Did you ask Carlisle about this?" Alice asked. Her eyes were hazy as she gazed at the artwork on the walls. She was looking, but not seeing—her sight was in the future. From the crease forming between her eyebrows, I knew she was having a hard time seeing around Leah. All the Quileute werewolves created blank spots in Alice's visions.

"He said it would be fine. It'll probably heal faster. Maybe." Carlisle and Jasper were making themselves the leading experts on Humans Injected By Vampire Venom, but I was their only subject to observe, so it wasn't like we were working with tons of data here.

"Oh, okay!" And just like that, Alice was back in the present, directing one of her radiant smiles my way.

Jasmine had a tattoo, a tiny little wave outline on the inside of her wrist. If becoming a vampire myself was in my future…at least I knew I wasn't wasting my money for Gunner and I to have these tattoos.

"You know people bleed when they get tattoos, right?" I asked Alice, whispering so low that there was more breath to my words than anything. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought about that until we were already at the tattoo shop.

"Oh, don't worry. You don't bother me. I can mostly only smell Leah, anyway. The werewolf scent is annoyingly strong. I just won't breath once it starts, and all should be fine. I'm almost as well-behaved as Rosalie."

Alice was so self-assured that I didn't question her. I had asked her to come with us so I would have a hand to hold, because I was sure the tattoo would hurt. Twenty minutes later, when the tattoo needle hit my skin, I was happy I had that foresight. I held Alice's hand the entire time.

"We're great influences, aren't we?" Leah asked when it was done, turning Gunner's arm this way and that to inspect the new ink in his skin. We got them in the same placement; left forearms, just before the crooks of our elbows. I very kindly let Gunner pick the placement, since I had talked him into getting the tattoos in the first place. "I've had my tattoo since me and Maisie were in high school and here we are, getting you tatted up."

While I had thought it would be funny if mine was red, Gunner had not agreed. He convinced me to get mine in shades of gray and black, so we really would match. Each of us born under full moons, just ten months apart. Maybe we shouldn't have been so surprised we got mixed up with the supernatural.

"Happy early graduation gift to you," I told Gunner. "I guess I could have let you graduate first, but I need this to heal before we go to South America, so I don't end up with some gross infection."

"You wouldn't have to worry about that if you didn't insist on sticking your hands where they don't belong." Alice's nose scrunched in her delicate disgust. She had no memories of her human life, and she was fully put off by animals that weren't her food.


Our parents weren't as mad as I thought they would be. I think it helped that they were matching, sibling tattoos. And they were in an easy-to-cove spot, if need be.

"Tell me why you really wanted this," Gunner said to me later that night, looking up from his biology notes. I was quizzing him on his study guide as we sat tucked into the window seat in my bedroom.

I looked down at my arm, still covered in the plastic that sealed in the healing gel the tattoo artist had slathered on once she was done. She did both of ours, one after the other. I had gone first, just like I always had in our lives, leaving a path for Gunner to follow. For once, he actually did.

We were not twins, but all my life, Gunner had been there. I had always assumed, before I met Jasper, that our whole lives would be that way.

But I knew better now. I knew, now, that one of us would have to leave the other, eventually. It was a truth that I hated and always pushed away every time it surfaced in my head. I did the same now, shutting down the thought even as it formed and swallowing past the thickness in my throat.

"I just thought it would be cool," I told him.

We both knew that for the lie it was.


A/N: I have missed sharing with you guys so much. You have no idea how happy I am to have inspiration for this story again. I love you all. Thank you for supporting me the way y'all do.