CHAPTER THIRTY

"Now, I want that door to stay open, young man!" Damon calls as Paul makes his way up the stairs to Jay's bedroom. "No funny business with my child!"

"He's a riot." Paul says sarcastically as he leans in the doorway to the largest room on the second floor of the house.

"He's an idiot." The little brunette grumbles over by her closet. She's in the process of unpacking some of her clothes.

"This is a nice place."

Jay nods. "Pays to have a rich Daddy."  She muses, still hanging her clothes. She hasn't looked over toward him, and he notices that she doesn't quite seem like herself.

"Are you alright?" He asks, and she nods.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you've seemed a little off since we got back from Mystic Falls."

"Right. Well, I am dead now, so..." Jay shakes her head as she then zips up her empty suitcase and then stores it in the corner of the closet. "I think me acting a bit different is...normal."

"Jay..." He starts to walk toward her, but she backs away.

"I really don't think you being close to me is such a good idea right now."

"You think you can hurt me?" He chuckles, still moving forward, and she suddenly ends up on the other side of the room. He sighs as he turns around to face her again.

"This is something that genuinely bothers me, so if you could not laugh like I'm being stupid, that'd be great." She shakes her head as she looks down at the hardwood floor. "Look, I'm fine, alright? And I'm not going anywhere today, so you can go. You've fulfilled your protector duties for the day. Congratulations."

"Pro— What are you talking about?" Paul questions. "I'm here because Sam doesn't need me on watch right now, and I wanted to see you."

"Well, I really just want to be alone." She tells him, and his eyebrows furrow as he looks at her, but he concedes.

"Okay." He nods and then heads for the door.

Once he's gone, Jay slides down the wall and then leans her head back against it. She closes her eyes, and doesn't open them even when she hears Stefan walk into her bedroom. He then makes his way over to the little brunette and kneels down in front of her.

"What was that about?" He asks, and she sighs.

"That was...every little insecurity that I've ever had amplified by this damn vampirism." She tells him, and he nods. "Back in Mystic Falls, even before my mom and I moved back... Boys never noticed me. Tyler was the only one that...and even that wasn't..." She scoffs.

"And you think Paul only likes you because of the imprint?" He asks, and she opens her dark eyes and looks at him.

"He's told me more than once that he doesn't want to have feelings for me." Jay says. "If not for the imprint...he never would've had a reason to even give me a second glance, like nobody else ever did before him. And he hates vampires, a lot. I'm really supposed to believe that his feelings for me haven't changed for any reason other than the imprint. How am I supposed to feel like he and I are...real?"

"I wish I had an answer, but I really don't understand much of this whole...imprint thing." He tells her. "It's gonna take time, Jay, but I'm sure things will work themselves out. The important things usually do." He says, and she offers him a small smile.

"Thanks, Stefan."

The next day, Jay's with Bella, and the two girls are making their way through the woods once again. The younger girl's told her friend a few times how stupid this is, and Bella replies by telling her to go home. As much as Jay knows that her being with Bella is stupid — because the klutzy teenager could easily cut herself in the middle of the woods, she can't bring herself to leave her. Not with the constant impending threat of the vampire Victoria who wants to kill Bella.

The girls make it to the edge of a cliff that overlooks the ocean, and Jay shakes her head. "Bella, come on. Let's just head back into Forks." The younger girl says.

"Go back if that's what you want." Bella tells her.

"We shouldn't even be out here."

"So go home."

Jay shakes her head, entirely oblivious to the other voice that only Bella can hear. The older brunette takes off her jacket and her bracelets before moving closer to the cliff's edge.

"How about if I just grab you and force you to go back?" Jay asks.

"You already would've if you could've."

"Don't use logic against me." She glares at her. "Not when you're being an idiot."

"Sorry." Bella mutters and then practically walks off the edge.

"N— Bella!" She groans as she quickly moves forward and watches the older girl fall to the water below. "Son of a bitch." She hisses.

"Jay?" A voice behind her makes her turn, and she looks at Paul. "Jake's going in after her. We saw her jump. You two know that Victoria's out here, right?"

"That's why I came with Bella." She tells him. "Maybe Damon's right, and I should bend my ethics a little bit. What good is free will when you use it for stupidity?" The little brunette asks as she looks back out at the water.

"I like that you still think compulsion is wrong." He says as he walks over to look at the water below as well. "It's proof that not everything about you has changed."

"Enough's changed." She mutters as she walks over to pick up Bella's things from the ground.

"We should get back. I want to help out at Harry's place."

"Help with what?" She asks as she looks up at him from where she's knelt down to collect her friend's bracelets.

"Harry saw Victoria, and she got him by his throat. Jake got to them before she could hurt him, but he had a heart attack." Paul tells her, and she stands up straight, slipping the bracelets into her sweater pocket. "Charlie got him out of the woods, but he still didn't make it."

"Oh my God." She takes a few steps toward him when he looks down. "Are you alright?" She reaches out and grabs his hand, and he intertwines their fingers as his hold on her tightens.

"Yeah." He nods. "Yeah, I'm okay." He says as he looks up to meet her eyes. He can't help but notice that even though they're holding hands, she's maintaining as much distance as she can.

"Come on. Let's get you over there." Jay says as she starts back into the woods, pulling him along with her. A small smile tugs at his lips because she hasn't let go of him.

—

"Yes, angry wolf-boy?" Jay asks as she walks up in front of Jake outside of Bella's house, and he looks up at her from the ground.

"I need you to go inside and check on Bella. There's a vampire here, and it might be one from that family, but I have to be sure that she's safe." He tells her.

"I can't go inside."

"I know that being next to her is hard for you, but you don't have to get close. I just—"

"No, Jake. I literally can't go inside the house." She tells him. "I haven't been invited in."

He sighs, realizing he hadn't thought this all the way through. He forgot about that detail in the ways that vampires like her differ from the Cullens. He nods and then turns around and starts toward the house, disappearing inside.

"Well, okay then." She mutters, and then sits on the porch steps.

A couple minutes later, a figure suddenly appears in front of her, and Jay immediately gets to her feet. "You're the girl from my vision." The petite, pale girl with the incredibly short hair says, and she raises her eyebrows.

"Excuse me?" Jay questions.

"You were with Bella on the cliff, telling her not to jump."

"Mhm." The younger girl nods. "I tell her not to do reckless stuff all the time, she rarely listens to me. Who are you exactly?"

"I'm Alice." She introduces herself, and the little brunette just looks at her. That cleared up exactly none of her confusion. "I'm an old friend of Bella's."

The teenager nods as she notices something. "Your eyes — sort of like Bella described. You're a vampire like the one with the dreads. So... You're a Cullen, I presume."

"Dreads?" She echoes. "Laurent? He's here?"

"He was." Jay says. "He tried to kill me and Bella, so some friends of mine killed him."

"You're friends with the werewolves then?"

"Yes, I'm friends with a werewolf. But the Quileutes aren't werewolves." She corrects. "A werewolf is affected by the full moon, the Quileutes aren't. They're shapeshifters that turn into wolves — big difference."

"How old are you?" Alice asks.

"Fifteen."

"And you're not human. I can hear your heartbeat, but your scent is different than a human's should be." She says. "What are you?"

"Vampire." She says, and the older girl narrows her amber eyes. "How did you know that I was on the cliff with Bella? You said that you had a...a vision?"

"Some vampires — like myself — gain special abilities when they turn. I can see visions of the future based on what people decide." She explains, and Jay nods.

"And you didn't see that you and your family leaving Bella would really hurt her?" She questions, remembering the way that Bella was when she first moved to La Push. "Or did you all just not care what it would do to her?"

"We care very much about Bella." Alice says defensively, and she nods slowly.

"Right, well... Interesting way of showing it."

Before the pixie-haired vampire can reply, she suddenly gets this far away look in her eyes. Jay quirks an eyebrow as she looks at the older girl, but she never says anything. Alice stands there a few moments longer and then just disappears.

Jay blinks a couple times. "Alright, well... Nice talking to you too." She mumbles sarcastically to the empty space in front of her.

The little brunette's laying on the steps a little while later when Alice suddenly blows right past her, and then the black car across the street starts up. Soon after that, Bella and Jake are rushing past her.

"He left you, Bella. He didn't want you anymore, remember?" Jake's talking to the older girl as the little brunette quickly gets to her feet.

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna let him kill himself out of guilt." Bella argues.

"What's going on?" Jay questions, but they don't answer her.

"What about your dad?" The Quileute boy asks, and Bella jumps when her best friend suddenly appears in front of her by the passenger side of the black car that Alice is in.

"I'm eighteen. I'm legally free to go, and I left a note." Bella tells him. "Move, Jay."

"Give me one good reason." The younger girl says.

"I have to go save Edward, and you are not coming with me."

"Not going with you where?" Jay questions.

"Italy." She says, and the little brunette chuckles.

"It's adorable that you think I'd let you go to another country without me with someone who's already abandoned you once." She argues and then turns for the back door.

"If you disappear with a vampire without a word to Paul, it'll kill him." Jake says, and the younger girl looks at him over the car's roof.

"So him imprinting on me means that I have to ask his permission to go places now?" She shakes her head. "Yeah, that's never gonna happen. I'm not even gonna ask Damon. You can feel free to fill them both in though."

"So that they can both kill me." He nods as she climbs into the backseat. "Great."