A/N: Thank you all for your reviews. Sorry this chapter took so long to update. Here's the next chapter. :)

Chapter Six: Vultures

JPOV

A warm feeling could never wash away the iciness, but it masked it for moments.

Alice smiled at me. We got into her truck and closed the doors. She rolled the key over in the ignition to turn on a soft song for background noise.

I was content when we didn't speak, but she was my date for the ball. I knew my siblings would object, perhaps Carlisle and Esme too. That could not stop me from going. Before I did, we had to find some kind of common ground.

She was modern; I was not.

She was free; I was shackled down.

She was human; I was not.

She was the pray; I was her predator.

She was happy; I was not.

I smiled when she turned sideways in the drivers' seat to look at me. "What kind of music do you like?" she wondered out loud in a dreamy voice, never taking her eyes off my face.

I shook my head. "I don't really listen to any music," I admitted. It was true! Music wasn't exactly something I'd bothered to explore in so long, even in the past months. Now I could tell she loved music and every word and note became intriguing to me.

She scoffed in disbelief. "How does someone not listen to music?" she asked out of curiosity.

"I've always had too much on my mind to ever truly listen," I explained.

"That's what music is good for. It makes you think, it opens up so many new perspectives of life, it gives us something to dance to and something else to cry to. It describes us while not being written about us. We can sing the lyrics, write feelings down without really feeling them. What would any great movie be without the soundtrack?"

I nodded. She had a point--she always did. It was endearing, cute even. "All right. Then what's your favorite song?"

Alice smiled, pleased that I was now interested by one of her hobbies. "Well, there's a song called 'A Praise Chorus' by Jimmy Eat World," she said thoughtfully. "It's one of those songs that has to be turned up all the way and danced to. But I love 'Supermassive Black Hole' by Muse as well."

"Never heard either song, sorry." I caught her fake amazed look and grinned. It was strange that I heard "Supermassive Black Hole" even if Muse was a British band. It was Muse! And I had heard of the band many times.

"And what song describes you?" I pressed.

"'Little House' by The Fray," she answered. She let a small hint of sadness show through her voice. The answer was so quick. She had thought of this before. That or I wasn't the first to ask about it.

I reached out to touch her hand. She didn't flinch or shiver. She let the sadness vanish and awaited my next question. "What's a song that describes me?" It would be her opinion, but so far, all her opinions seemed well based and even correct in my eyes. I trusted her judgment and knowledge of music.

Alice studied me for a long moment, running her petite hand over my palm. The touch was so light I could hardly feel it. She knew the answer already--I could read that in her face without a doubt. "'Animal I Have Become' by Three Days Grace," she whispered.

By the title alone, I could tell it fit. I vowed to borrow a computer from one of my siblings after I got home and look it up. Not because of the fitting title though; I planned to look all the songs up because they were all songs she listened to or liked. If music helped her think, wouldn't it become easier to know the way her mind worked while listening to her favorite songs?

However, most of the music she listened to was rock. The songs she listened were the same. Rock would never have been my first genre choice to explore if I was to choose alone. I would have reminded myself of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and other classical composers or perhaps oldies--something a little more familiar to me.

But rock it was!

I soon knew about Alice's favorite bands. I learned of her natural talent with music also. She played piano, violin, guitar, cello, and a bit of drums for fun alone. Upon moving for college, she only got to bring her guitar. She told me about all her favorite music videos, one of which was "Ready, Set, Go" by Tokio Hotel. A German band, and she reminded me that her mother was German. She spoke only a little, what her uncle had taught her and what she had picked up on her summer trip to Prague.

"A little" wasn't the appropriate phrase though. She could order all kinds of food, introduce someone, and she knew random phrases. It was more than I knew and I'd gone ahead in our textbook out of boredom and desperation. I forced her to admit she didn't give herself enough credit. She laughed softly, rolling her eyes. She always showed a new part of herself whenever we spoke.

Time went by too quickly with her there. I felt as if she would vanish.

Everything in my life was temporary, all close connections. That was one reason my siblings didn't become close to humans, but they had something else to help them. They all had mates and they had never been in my position before.

They were each handed an answer when they were changed. Carlisle found the second option--surely there was some satisfaction there. As for me, I only recalled the countless, nameless people I had once willingly killed. None of my new family could make me forget or make the shame disappear. None of them knew what it was like to not know of another way from the start.

Alice didn't know what I was, but she had some healing power in her smile. My siblings had their healers already; I had to let mine work, and that was instinct and will.

What could I do?

One could not fight endlessly.

They didn't know what it was like, not Carlisle, not Esme, not Edward. They could only attempt to guess.

Alice was free, and when I was with her, freedom felt closer for the first time in too long.

The world is not big enough for creatures like us. We wander too much, never truly caring for anything. Sadistic, masochistic, there was no place for us in this world.

I could not become numb as some. Like my new coven, I wanted to try to find some other point to existence. I'd been trying for six months now and Alice made it all so easy, even while the temptation lurked in the back of my throat.

We were vultures, picking off the wounded one by one.

Sometimes we never chose our victims; they just were.

I refused to let Alice become a victim of anything more than lies. She needed to survive because this was the only way to prove something to myself and my coven.

I had finally found something in my life that was good, true, beautiful. I could not destroy it. I would never survive if I lost this one thing...

"Why that song?" I asked finally. Yes, I did want to know the reasons. I wanted to know what she could see in me that she would hold judgments and throw first impressions away.

Alice shrugged. "Because there's something inside you no one else can see, and you believe that it makes you who you are. You try so hard to hide it and to warn people, but then they look at you and they see someone begging for a way out if they can see past the warning," she explained. "Everyone has an animal inside somehow, but you--" she smiled thoughtfully "--you have embraced it and now you can't see past it." She met my eyes for a moment, searching for the right words. I knew she would continue. She leaned her head back against the window. "You're so different. I can't read you or guess what really happened, but the animal multiplied and now you're afraid of something."

She waited for me to confirm or deny her conclusions. They shocked me! They were all too accurate. She read me well enough, but she still couldn't see the true animal was there and that it did control me. I sighed heavily. "You don't know how odd it all is," I whispered, and she nodded. " I have no hope left because there's nothing to hope for anymore. I've lived in this world too long. Nothing changes. The faces do, sure, but not the shallow characters and the selfishness that even I possess. Not what matters."

Alice stared at me, taking in my words. She clearly heard the anger in my voice. "So in however many years, you've found nothing to put your trust in?" she pressed softly, sadly, gently. She took my sadness as her own. When my words were depressing, she took the same emotions.

I shook my head. "Not exactly. I believed at one point, but my faith has since faded for one reason or another. Humans just have their own ways and they change too much while not changing at all. There isn't anymore truth to the world. People lie with their faces all the time."

Alice knit her eyebrows together. She had noticed something, and I began to think I had slipped with something, even though I couldn't remember what I said in full. I was going too fast...

"Humans?" she repeated thoughtfully, not meeting my eyes. Then she shook the thought away and let out a small sigh. "Maybe they lie because they don't know what the truth is," she suggested. She was too kind--I should have know what she would say.

"And do you lie then?" I inquired. My tense posture was uncomfortable in the position, turned slightly in the seat to get a better look at her. I didn't dare move. These moments seemed more like dreams to me--they were too perfect to be real.

Alice nodded. "Not on purpose, but smiling is easier than crying sometimes," she answered--always honest. I had yet to see sadness that was her own. Perhaps I was blind.

Her words were true, and I smiled a small bit. How long had it been since I'd done that? So long, too long. It wasn't easy to smile in my life. Still, she made me want to live another day, just to see her face. I didn't have to speak to her or be with her. Seeing her was enough! She had a power over me.

"What is there for you to lie about?" I asked.

Alice ducked her head. I was about to apologize for invading her personal life, but she looked up. No smile, no laugh. She put one hand in her hair, holding it away from her face as she stared down at my hands. She was struggling. "Well, when I was like twelve or thirteen, out of nowhere, something just broke inside me. I'd never been depressed before or not that badly, not like that. Nothing serious had ever happened to me. I'd had a great life. So when I threatened suicide, my uncle sent me to a mental hospital. They tied me down so tightly that I ended up with bruises, forced pills down my throat until I threw up from their attempts, ran tests for every disease around until I passed out from seeing the blood being taken from my arm. They believed I was crazy for some reason. No one stuck up for me then, no one was there when I needed them. Pills and restraints were their answers.

"That was my life for three years. I got past the original reason for my depression. By then, I just felt so abandoned that I remained just as depressed. I had a tutor come in for school. I had someone babysitting me at all times. I couldn't take a shower without someone there. The one time I was left alone, I cut off all my hair. It wasn't mania though. I was told so many times that I was crazy and finally I just wanted to act like a crazy person for once. I wanted those few moments of satisfaction. I wanted to show them crazy if that's what they believed me to be.

"I got out before I started my senior year of high school. By that time, I was ahead by a full year and I decided nothing could imprison me. I got back to myself, cheerful and happy, but I was more real with the knowledge of what unhappiness feels like. I learned that no human is really crazy. Their diseases may cause them to be a certain way, but we're all as sane as the next person, just in different ways," she said with a quick shrug and a slight smile, showing her dimples. "I've accepted it, so denying it would be pointless. I feel more insane when I'm happy anyway. Why don't I cry like everyone else? Am I numb to bad feelings?" She shrugged again.

"But you're not incapable of feeling those things," I pointed out. No one could not feel something; it was the way things worked. And I knew. All these years, I had just felt numb, and that was some feeling even if it wasn't worth much. "Being happy isn't a crime."

Alice laughed. "Then what's stopping you?" she wondered out loud, studying my face.

I stared into her eyes, unable to determine a good, specific answer immediately. Many things stopped me. I held myself back, other things held me back, the past, the present, the future without any change. I wet my lips. Alice was so easy to talk to, too easy; that didn't stop my answer. I watched her closely before I answered, "Guilt, I suppose."

Alice nodded in satisfaction. She was working her way towards a certain point, and I had no idea what that point was. "It's just another wasted emotion. You can't change the past, Jasper. Don't punish yourself," she instructed.

My jaw automatically clenched as I smelled someone walking by, but my mind was on what she had just said. They were words of wisdom and yet I could not push the guilt away after so long.

Everything took time.

I had an eternity.

That life wasn't worth living to me, but I was given no choice. A hundred and fifty years later, I'd found something to look forward to and a new family. Now my family would object to the thing I looked forward to, and what was there to do?

Alice leaned forward to touch my hand, and I looked up at her. She smiled. "Time answers all questions," she told me, and that was true to some extent.

Why did she appear to have all the answers I so desperately needed?

It was strange.

Alice glanced at her clock and moved to turn off her car. "We should go to class," she announced, grabbing her books from the back seat.

"Do you mind if I walk you?" I asked after stepping out and jogging around to meet her in front of her truck--it felt so slow.

"Not at all," she said with another smile.

And so we began to walk. We stopped by my Jaguar, which I had childishly bought in a desperate attempt to show off to Alice, to get my book. I bent in the window to grab it off the passengers' seat. My siblings pulled in together. I saw Rosalie's scowl and Edward's look of caution. Emmett seemed too excited, like he believed I was about to "score". MaRai only looked annoyed. ALl their reactions were uncalled for. I had no reason to respond, so I turned to Alice, ignoring everyone else. I would deal with them later when they chose to tell me how I could kill Alice.

I kept calling her that--Alice.

Emmett ran to catch up with us. Alice grinned up at him, even after he yanked her into a hug less than gently, lifting her feet off the ground. She took a minute to regain balance after he set her down. At least she laughed about it, but I wanted my siblings to quit hovering over me. I hadn't killed anyone yet, and that wasn't in my plans. I could control my thirst, maybe not as well as they could and my struggle was more obvious. I never relaxed my posture and I was aware how often I frowned, trying not to concentrate on not killing Alice or anyone else. But it had been six months since I had hunted humans last.

They were overreacting as much as I was.

"Hey," Alice called, waving at Alice.

He was polite enough to smile back, but he quickly turned away to help MaRai out of the car. He wasn't trying to be rude; he just was.

Rosalie was the one being rude on purpose.

I glared at her, feeling the growl deep in my throat. I held it down and took Alice's books to carry them.

"So how's my brother doing?" Emmett wondered in a dreamy voice that made me even more angry--did he truly expect Alice to know how thirsty I was? Besides, he could have read my symptoms--the darker color of my eyes, the rings around my eyes, the paleness of my skin, or he could have taken a wild guess. We'd last hunted together; he could have used his own thirst for an example and he chose to ask Alice.

"Um... Fine," she answered in a confused voice. She cringed at me, wondering if there was some other meaning she had missed. "But then he's your brother. You would know better than me."

I hid my smile by hanging my head, but the falter in my posture told Emmett I was amused. He'd always said that I never relaxed. It was true, but not because of my posture at all. Mostly, it was because I was used to having my back straight, shoulders back, eyes ahead. I had nothing to look at my side before.

Alice was practically skipping between us, almost preventing me from smacking Emmett as he began to whistle innocently. She closed her eyes for a few steps, then shot a glance towards me, and I saw her amusement. It hid embarrassment, as my own smile did.

Emmett had no discretion.

We made it into class and filed into our row. Emmett first, then me, and Alice last. I set her books down as she sat. She was graceful in an athletic way. She was in good shape, the muscle only adding a slight curve to her arms and making her seem harder than some humans, though she was still soft to me. Surely a girl from Los Angeles played volleyball or maybe surfed, perhaps both, but working out could have been a hobby too. I knew so little about her!

"Thanks," Alice said softly.

Class began far before I wanted it to. I reluctantly took notes, watching Alice between each section. She was careful. Her cursive was unique and neat, slanted beautifully to the right, each letter perfect. I smiled at how she put a small circle over her Is instead of dotting them.

She spoke German well enough to add a few notes on her own, simply adding a word that was often mistaken for another or a word with the same meaning. I observed her rings, which I had never noticed before. One was plastic with a large purple rose painted on the black surface. The second was silver with a white and pink agate the size of the bottom half of her middle finger.

Her hands were very petite. Mine could have made them disappear.

But honestly, I needed to concentrate during class. Edward could read my mind and I didn't know how much discretion he had. Anyway, it was my choice to learn German. Surely I could find something else to think about other than Alice.

But she was the most interesting thing.

She fascinated me.

I wasn't very close to my siblings yet. I'd spent the majority of the past six months alone, just thinking.

I'd thought of many things. Never had I imagined one could capture my attention the way Alice had and continued to.

Beauty.

That was part of our mask: We were attractive to the human eye, their sense of smell, even to their ears. Only to me, there was nothing more beautiful than this human beside me. She proved my first judgment on the entire human race was premature and wrong.

How could I make my siblings understand when they weren't even open to such friendships?

Alice was my only friend in many, many years. I had Carlisle as a mentor, Esme as a mother, Edward and Emmett were good brothers, and Rosalie and MaRai were both sisters to me. None of that was the same as the friendship I had with Alice.

They could never understand; I wouldn't try to make them.

Class went by, and it ended.

I walked Alice to Italian. She smiled at me, a little hesitant, but she whispered, "Arrivederci" quietly before she went into class.

Two language classes, yet I had no idea what her major was. That was another topic we would have to cover on Saturday when I escorted her to the ball. I would see her after class, and it would feel like forever. It always did. She was the only thing that made my life interesting.

She was on my mind the entire period. I sat in my car, trying to do some homework, but what could I do? There was something about her that existed in no other, a beauty that was deeper in her.

I sighed.

Edward joined me soon. I waited patiently for him to speak because I knew what the subject would be already. "Jazz, listen. We're not trying to prevent you from having friends, but we just moved here. We paid for classes already; Carlisle got a job. We don't like ot move; we only do it when we have to."

I stared ahead, almost ready to yell. "So you think I'll kill her, but Emmett can follow her around, tickling and hugging her and that's fine?" I inquired softly. No, yelling wouldn't work. I was too angry for that.

"I never said that."

"Then what were you saying?"

"I'm saying that you're playing with fire. What if something does happen?"

I clenched my jaw angrily. "Don't you think I've thought of that already?" I demanded, but he knew. He'd heard exactly what I thought of as I debated. But I could not go on like I had those years in the past. I refused to. Alice was the key to a door I had tried to open a thousand times, an answer to a question I'd asked even more times.

If the answer is so close, who could refuse it?

Edward shook his head. "It wouldn't just effect you, Jasper. All of us would have to move," he announced, and he left me with that thought.

He was right, but I would not kill her. I would never do that! I had to take control of my life now. Alice was the only true friend I had; she would always be that way.

I groaned in annoyance, closing my eyes. The friendship was the only thing in my life that made sense.

Alice was walking towards me soon. I smiled at how she was talking to someone over her shoulder--was she ever alone?

I got out of my car and fell into step next to her easily. "Should we say seven for the ball then?" I inquired in a formal manner.

Alice nodded. "Sure, that sounds great," she replied.

I opened her car door for her and held her hand as she stepped in.

Until our next meeting, I would remember her last smile before she started her truck's engine and backed out, her eyes on me for the first few seconds. I could hear her heart pounding.