THE WORLD SHIFTED EACH TIME I WALKED DOWN THE CLOCKTOWER'S HALLWAYS.

Eventually, the entrances and exists would become familiar. I could soon put myself on autopilot and do what needed to be done, but for now- for now, I gravitated towards the learning experience.

I'd walked out of Caius' room around noon the day after, deciding that finding something productive to do for the day was a must. I'd spent so much time with my new boyfriend at the party that I'd failed to have much contact with anyone else.

The first person that I wished to speak to was Jasper, who was not doing well before the party, but had found his mate. I didn't know this Wren, but if she was able to make one of my best friends happy, I'd do my bets to get to know her too.

They were easy to find, cuddled up and watching an old romance movie from the 40s featuring Marilyn Monroe. Wren giggled as Marilyn bounced on the bed. Jasper tried to stop her from repeating the movement, but it was far too late for that.

"Hello, you two," I greeted. Wren stopped bouncing instantly and smiled at me. "Did you two have fun last night?"

"Lots of fun," Wren answered happily.

"Wren had her first kill and we danced by the back fountain," Jasper said, pulling his mate closer to him.

"We shared."

I was struck by the admission. Jasper was one of the vampires from the Cullen Coven, who swore they wouldn't drink human blood. I didn't expect Jasper to break that tradition so soon after coming. Did he drink from humans when not at home, when traveling? What would Carlisle think of that?

Actually, it isn't Carlisle that would judge. He'd been an honest man with an interest in learning the lives of other people even when I was a human working as an intern in his clinic. Jasper is his child, or acts as his son, that wouldn't change with a bit of human blood in his system.

God, Edward. He'd been against violence as long as I'd known him. Which wasn't that long, I suppose, but long enough to get a grasp on who he is. Nobody in the Volturi had spoken a kind word about him, and I was starting to believe that their opinions had some basis in reality.

Alice... She'd been speaking poor about me, according to Jasper.

His wife.

"Have you told Alice about Wren?" I asked, realizing that we could have another Athenodora and Sulpicia case on our hands. "Or vise versa."

Jasper stayed quiet and at first I assumed the worst, that the lockdown would go on longer with a chance at a vengeful wife coming to take down a mate for the place of lover.

"I sent Alice a text saying that it was over before the party. We've been on a break since I decided to leave for this vacation, but she swore she wouldn't tell anyone. Now I guess everyone will know," Jasper explained. Wren nodded her head.

"Everyone has a past." Wren giggled and turned back to face the movie. "Except for me."

Jasper shook his head. "You have a past, darling, you just can't remember any of it."

"Same thing," she retorted. Her blonde hair was tied in a ponytail that got in Jasper's face. "Rosalie called me a blank slate, so that's what I am. I'm becoming a person, creating a new past."

They never told me the specifics of it. Wren was simply Jasper's mate and a Newborn Vampire like myself. We were almost twins if you put our faces together.

Yet I had a past, a memory of a horrible time, and somehow she didn't.

"We'll pull the memories out of you in a bit," Jasper promised, kissing the top of Wren's blonde head. "Nothing gets past the Volturi, darling, nothing."

There was something behind his words that I picked up instantly. Jasper never said anything straight up unless in private. His passive comments sometimes come across as ineffective, but I knew him. I knew his persona, how he cared about everything so much that it hurt him.

Nothing gets past the Volturi. Said to his mate while watching a movie and being in front of me.

He wants to leave, he told me that he was thinking about it. Wren was moved here temporarily, she's a Newborn and can't be left alone with humans like Bella. If he felt Wren was safer here and she liked the people, she'd stay.

Wren wants a past, she wants a future, and she has made memories with the Volturi.

"Jasper, can Rosalie come visit here?" Wren asked.

He hesitated before reminding her, "Rose has to fight that army, darling, she won't be able to come until that's over."

Wren groaned audibly at this realization, pausing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on the TV. "Why can't she just let someone else deal with that? She deserves to be safe here. Why are they fighting the army anyways? That isn't their job, it's the Guards job!"

She was progressing quickly in her reasoning that had to be relearned. I admired that about Jasper's mate. She didn't want to pry, but it did seem like she had to grow up all over again, and that Jasper and Rosalie were going to be the ones to teach her everything.

"She doesn't want to do it, but Edward has to protect Bella," Jasper said through gritted teeth. "Since she's a human, she has to be protected. So much has happened to her, so he says he wants to protect her. He loves her."

Sure, he loved her enough to want to end it all. He believed he would go to Hell, but he still wanted to die because if she were dead, nothing else mattered. Or, that was what Aro told me before he left for his trip to Forks.

An army after Bella. I heard the rumors about it the days before the party, about how Edward had killed someone's mate, meaning that she was out for blood. Both sides seemed to have issues, but the Cullens allowed one of their own to kill a mate, and Caius told me that was enough to want to take away Bella from Edward.

He did explain, however, that they weren't mates.

Not like Caius and I were, like Aro and I were.

Like Marcus and I were.

Jasper and Wren had this spark between them that I enjoyed watching purely because it made Jasper so happy. Here now, listening to them talk to each other, it's clear that they need one another to mellow out.

My thoughts were interrupted by a sigh coming from the door. Caius stood there, a calm but distant expression plastered on his handsome face.

"Jasper, Aro wants to speak with you," Caius stated matter-of-factly, his face not revealing a hint of emotion. "On the phone. Preferably alone."

The empath was a bit taken aback, his eyes darting to the doorframe that Caius leaned on.

"For what reason, exactly?" Jasper questioned.

"I do not know."

---

EVERY BIT OF ROSALIE'S ROOM HAD TO BE PERFECT, THAT WAS JUST THE NATURE OF HER BEING.

Back when she was human, a time she remembers all too well, her room had been tended to by a maid that her mother hired, not wanting to do the household chores herself. Rosalie found this odd, since her mother was already a naturally clean person.

It was when Rosalie had been turned into a vampire that she realized the kind of mess she made around the house. Carlisle had softly reminded her to pick up after herself more than once, and now that she was older, she had to keep her room clean to keep a single sense of her mind orderly.

Now, as she stared at the rummaged through room, it hit her like a ton of bricks.

Her privacy had been invaded, and the usual suspects were already on thin ice.

"WHICH ONE OF YOU DID IT?" Rosalie shouted as she ran down the stairs and into the living room, finding Edward, Bella, and Alice on the couch. Bella's hands shot to her ears, the noise being sudden and too loud for her liking. Rose didn't care.

Rosalie threw a potted plant on the floor, cracking the vase and surely killing the plant from the force. "YOU WENT THROUGH MY FUCKING ROOM!"

"I cleaned it up," Edward said in defense, "it's too clean anyways."

The blonde vampire was fuming. How dare you? She thought to herself, How dare you come into my room and look through my things!

Of course, the telepath could hear every word she thought, and that made Rosalie even madder. This man, this man who could read everything she thought, should have known better. It wasn't the first time she'd yelled at him for this exact thing either.

"The way I keep my room IS OF NO CONCERN TO YOU!" She began to shout again, her fists clenched and her eyes on the brink of clouding over with tears.

She hated her things being touched. It was bad enough that Edward could read her thoughts, but he was touching her things. She had her diaries in there, the letters she wrote to her mother that, of course, she would never be allowed to send. He could have seen those, the small pieces of her heart that she wanted to keep private.

Not even Emmett had read her things in there, he knew how much that meant to her.

She didn't know if he really had, it would be devastating if he did it.

Rosalie wanted to throw him out of the house. He was constantly disrespecting her in front of the family, in front of his stupid fucking human girl that Rose was starting to hate more and more as she said things into Edward's ear about a girl that she'd never met before.

So in her anger, she got petty.

"River never would have done this," Rosalie seethed as she grabbed her coat from the wall to the left of the TV. "Maybe because she's a good person and you just fucking aren't."

"She's off killing human beings like a monster," Edward retorted, rolling his eyes at the fuming woman. "She made her choices, Rose, you can't use her to throw in my face anymore. She's not the same broken body we brought back home with us to fix."

"HOW DARE YOU CALL HER A BROKEN BODY," Rosalie screamed as multiple people came in through the front door.

Carlisle and Esme came in through the door, instantly confused as to what was going on. They'd come in at a terrible time, truly, as they were the first people to witness their daughter throwing a nearby glass cup at Edward's head, which shattered instantly.

Bella screamed as the glass shattered, and it was by nothing short of a miracle that nothing cut her.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?" Carlisle shouted into the room, causing everyone to go silent.

It stayed that way for longer than anyone expected, Rosalie still fuming as she watched Alice slowly begin to pick up the broken pieces of glass, getting some from Edward's head. Bella cried at the corner of the couch, holding onto Edward, who just shook his head.

Esme spoke first, her voice meek and timid as she watched the scene slow to a stop, "Why did you throw that glass at your brother, Rose?"

The question struck her gut, mainly because she felt like she'd been goaded into it. Edward had ruined her room, her special place that kept her safe from everyone. He had defiled it by going through everything, there was little doubt that there was a possibility that he'd seen the letters, that he saw things he wasn't supposed to.

"He went through my room again," Rosalie's voice was a mere whisper as she wished she were human again, wished she could cry.

Carlisle tried to interject. "That is no reason to throw a glass at your brother-"

Rosalie didn't let him, "He called River's body broken. Said that's all she was, all she is. You still let him stay here even after he says things like that? You just allow it?"

She knew that Aro was only right behind her parents, that he would be walking into this mess, and she knew that this was going to reach him. The charade of Edward being a good person was up, she realized, and Rosalie thought she was so stupid for allowing such a person in her life.

And there was Alice, who just went along with everything that he said, that he did. Rosalie felt the betrayal deep in her chest. It was Alice who was the first sister she had. Rose had been an only child, never felt sisterhood until Alice came along and joined the Cullen Coven.

How could Carlisle have let this happen?

Her father was at a loss for words, dumbfounded as to what to do. Edward had gotten a glass thrown at him, but what he said? What he said?

It was disgusting. So foul and cruel, downright evil. Who could say something about someone who did everything they could to be their friend? Carlisle still considered River a friend. He'd told her things that he hadn't told anyone else about himself when she was a human, the deep yet non-immortal parts of him. His hobbies, his interests, she'd taken an interest in him.

"This isn't true, Edward," Esme tried to give him a final chance to redeem himself, herself knowing how closely Aro was behind them, "You can take that back. It was the heat of the moment, you can't really mean that about her."

Some people aren't good people.

"You know that it's true, Rose," Edward seethed as he stared directly at her, his gold eyes aiming to destroy. "The only reason why you love her and hate Bella is because Carlisle took out her womb after it was so fucked up because of that-"

The king was so closely behind that he'd taken his head off before he got a chance to speak further.