⌜ chapter five ⌟

Most of the vampires are gathered in the Cullens living room upstairs, and Bella's sitting on the couch beside Alice. Carlisle's standing about a foot away from them, with Edward standing on the opposite side of the coffee table. Rosalie's sitting in a chair to her brother's left, and Esme's standing beside her. Jay's near the entrance of the room with Stefan a few feet behind her, leaning in the doorway, and Damon walks over to the youngest.

"You don't know how to make friends that don't have life endangering tendencies, do you?"

Jay narrows her dark eyes as she looks up at him. "Shut up."

"That's like your new favorite catch phrase." Damon says, and she shoves him away from her.

"Damon, leave her alone." Stefan tells his brother as the older boy crosses the room to look out the floor-to-ceiling window.

"Speaking of new catch phrases..."

"Who is it?" Carlisle asks his son once the bickering ends. "Someone we know?"

"It was a stranger. I didn't recognize his scent." Edward tells him.

"A nomad passing through?" Esme asks, but she doesn't sound as though she actually believes that to be a possibility.

"A passerby wouldn't have left Bella's father alive." Rosalie reasons just as Jasper and Emmett walk into the living room.

"The scent disappeared about five miles south of Bella's house." The blond tells them as his burly brother rests his elbow on Jay's shoulder.

"Could it have been someone that you know?" Edward looks at Jay, and the brunette shakes her head.

"We are overdue for a visit from Stefan's favorite ex." Damon says, and his younger brother shakes his head at him.

"Besides the fact that there's no reason for Katherine to come anywhere near me—" Jay starts, shooting him a dirty look. "—she couldn't get into Bella's house without an invitation. And I gave all of my friends vervain months ago."

"What about Bella's father?" Stefan asks.

"She puts it in his coffee every morning."

"Elena?" Damon suggests, but the little brunette shakes her head.

"She knows that you have the cure, and we want her to flip her switch back. She's not stupid, this is the last place that she'll ever come." Jay tells him. "It has to be someone who was already tied to Bella before I got here."

"Someone's orchestrating this." Carlisle agrees.

"Victoria?" Bella asks as she looks up at him.

"I would have seen her decide." Alice shakes her head.

"It has to be the Volturi." Edward says.

"Already? I mean, it hasn't been that long since we got back from Italy." Jay argues before looking up at Emmett. "And while they were definitely creepy, they weren't break-in-and-go-through-your-underwear-drawer creepy." She says, and he chuckles.

"I don't think it's the Volturi either." Alice continues. "I've been watching Aro's decisions too."

"So, we keep looking." Emmett says.

"We'll also take shifts guarding Bella at her house." Carlisle tells them.

"Another protection detail?" Rosalie questions.

"Rosalie."

"Actually, I don't think that'll be necessary." Jay interjects, and they all look at her. "Marie's been talking to Bonnie and their grandmother on the Other Side, and they've been helping her with her magic. She can do a boundary spell — make it impossible for vampires to get inside Bella's house. But that'll mean you too." She adds as she looks at Edward.

"If it'll protect Bella..." He nods as he looks at his girlfriend.

"I'll call Marie, make sure that she can do a spell to keep out vampires like them." Stefan turns around and walks out of the room as he pulls his phone out of his back pocket.

"That's only one problem — the house." Bella says. "Me and my dad aren't always home, and someone still has to search for the intruder."

"And for Victoria." Rosalie adds.

"And keep yourselves fed." She shakes her head.

"Well, Stefan's always with me, so you can stay with us at school if they're not there." Jay says, glancing between Edward and Alice. "And I know someone who can watch over Charlie." She smiles as she looks over at Damon.

"When did I adopt a hell-spawn?" The raven-haired vampire questions, and she smiles sarcastically at him.

"You're the one always bitching that there's nothing to do in this town. Now, you have something to do."

"Watch over Chief Mustache?" Damon glares at her, and she rolls her eyes before turning her attention back to Bella.

"Damon and I have a blood supply at the house, and when the others need to go and feed, you and I can..." The little brunette sighs as she looks down.

"What?" Emmett lightly nudges her, and she looks up at him before her gaze turns to Edward.

"I'm actually mildly sorry for the suggestion, but not for you." She says and then looks back over at Bella. "We should tell the pack anyway. If there's another vampire in town, they should know."

"So, you're gonna call Paul?" The older girl asks.

"No. You're gonna call Jacob."

"Are you gonna avoid him forever?"

"I'm not avoiding him, Bella. I dated a newly turned vampire, remember?" Jay says as she straightens up, and Emmett drops his arm. "I'm sparing him the drama and blood-shed." She turns around and walks away, leaving the house so that she can head back to her own.

"What happened with Tyler?" Bella asks as she looks over at Damon.

"He lost control, fed on her...on more than one occasion." His blue eyes move from where Jay just disappeared to Bella. "Though she's always quick to come to his defense, reminding us that it wasn't his fault the second time around."

"What happened when it was his fault?"

"She had to use a vervain dart to poison him, make him stop. She ran home after he passed out, wore a scarf until the wound healed."

"And she doesn't want what happened with Tyler to happen with her and Paul."

"We all lose control in the beginning, Bella." Damon tells her. "It's not if, it's when." He then leaves to go and find Jay so that she's not alone at the house, knowing the thoughts that she's battling in her mind.

—

"Why do you keep showing up in my room?" Emmett questions as he walks out of his bathroom, towel-drying his dark, curly hair.

"Why is Jasper never home when I come over here?" She asks, staring at his ceiling.

"You have a thing for my brother?"

"Mhm. That part where he makes me feel less...broken."

"His mood-control thing." He says, and she nods. "You're not broken, Jay. Actually, I think that what you feel is normal after everything that you've been through."

"Whatever. I didn't want to be at home, and now here I am because school doesn't start for an hour." She says as she rolls onto her side on his bed; his bed's pressed into the corner of his room, and her back's to the wall. "Do I really even have to go? I mean, I'm dead. Who cares?"

"Yes, you have to go to school."

"I should've known asking you was pointless. I've seen your collection of graduation caps in the hallway." She says, and he chuckles. "Why the hell do you subject yourself to the torture of high school anyway? You can do whatever you want."

"Not quite." He disagrees. "I'm still stuck avoiding the sun."

"Yeah, that's no fun." She mumbles. "Still. Why high school? I don't even want to graduate this once. Hey! You have a diploma to spare, right?"

"Doesn't work that way." He walks over and lays on his back next to her. "Normalcy — that's why I go. It's better than sitting around here and doing nothing all day. Though I do prefer college."

"I think you're just a bunch of nerds."

"Why didn't you want to be at home this morning?"

"Damon poured water on my head because I volunteered him to get up early and keep watch over Charlie. Stefan wouldn't let me kill him, so I left before he did." She tells him, and he turns his head to look at her.

"I thought Damon was supposed to be your legal guardian. Why are two always fighting?"

"He is my legal guardian. Ric was dating my mom, and he was our guardian after she died, but then he knew that he was gonna die. And since Damon was Ric's best friend, he promised that he'd look after me. And since Jeremy's dead, Elena's gone, and I literally have no other family, he did the legal stuff and moved here." She explains. "We fight because even when he's being nice, he's still a dick."

They continue talking for awhile, and he gets her laughing with stories about his human life — the relationships that he had with his brothers and his younger sister. Jay even talks about her own childhood with her family, smiling through most of it. The conversation comes to an end when her phone rings, and she sits with her legs crossed as she answers the call.

"Hey, Bell."

"Hey. I have kind of a weird question." The older girl tells her, and Jay leans against the wall behind her.

"Okay. What's up?" She asks, stretching her legs out in front of her so they go across Emmett's lap.

"Do you remember when we were all taking pictures at Kim and Henry's? There was one of you in the kitchen, and you had your ice cream bowl covering part of your face?"

"Mhm." Jay nods.

"Do you have it?"

"Uh, no. I didn't even know that you printed up those pictures, and I can't go inside your house, remember?" She tells her. "I mean, besides Marie's spell — I was never invited in. How would I get the picture?"

"I must've dropped it or something." Bella mutters, and it sounds like she's flipping through things and shuffling stuff around.

"What's going on?" Her eyebrows furrow, and Emmett's now looking at her as he listens to the conversation, wanting to make sure that nothing's wrong.

"I printed up a bunch of pictures the night that I got back from Florida, and that picture was sitting on top when I left for school yesterday morning, but now I can't find it. I was printing up more pictures, and I'm bringing them with me to school, but that one..." She sighs as she stops looking for it, deciding that the search is hopeless.

"This picture went missing the night after someone was snooping in Bella's room?" Emmett questions, and Jay looks over at him.

"You think Bella's intruder stole a picture of me?" The little brunette quirks an eyebrow, and he shrugs.

"Who are you talking to?" Bella asks.

"Emmett; I'm at his house."

"I think she's stalking me." He says, speaking louder so that Bella can hear.

"You see me lurking outside your bedroom window?" The youngest questions. "I just needed a distraction." She slaps his chest, and he grunts.

"I gotta go, I'll see you at school." Bella tells her, and the girls hang up.

"You wanna give me a ride?" Jay asks as she looks back at Emmett. "I don't wanna sit in the car with Stefan. He keeps lecturing me about my temper with Damon."

"Yeah, sure." He pats her shin, and she moves her legs so that he can get to his feet.