It took me three tries to read the last sentence, and I realized the problem was my shaking hands.

"Bella?"

Focused as I was, Edward's voice, though quiet and not totally unexpected, made me gasp and whirl.

He was leaning in the doorway, his eyebrows pulled together. Then he was suddenly at my side, taking my hand.

"Did I startle you? I'm sorry. I did knock. . . ."

"No, no," I said quickly. "Have you seen this?" I pointed to the paper.

A frown creased his forehead.

"I hadn't seen today's news yet. But I knew it was getting worse. We're going to have to do something . . . quickly."

"Good," Emmett smiled, but everyone else was grim and lost in thought.

I didn't like that. I hated any of them taking chances, and whatever or whoever was in Seattle was truly beginning to frighten me. But the idea of the Volturi coming was just as scary.

"What does Alice say?"

"That's the problem." His frown hardened. "She can't see anything . . .

"Why not?" Alice frowned. "I should be able to see that."

"I don't know," Edward said, "but that just makes things a lot worse."

"Thanks," Alice hissed.

though we've made up our minds half a dozen times to check it out. She's starting to lose confidence. She feels like she's missing too much these days, that something's wrong. That maybe her vision is slipping away."

My eyes were wide. "Can that happen?"

"Who knows? No one's ever done a study . . . but I really doubt it. These things tend to intensify over time. Look at Aro and Jane."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Self-fulfilling prophecy, I think. We keep waiting for Alice to see something so we can go . . . and she doesn't see anything because we won't really go until she does. So she can't see us there.

"Hm... maybe that's it," Alice said thoughtfully and more than a little hopeful. "We've never had a situation like this, after all..."

Maybe we'll have to do it blind."

I shuddered. "No."

"Did you have a strong desire to attend class today? We're only a couple of days from finals; they won't be giving us anything new."

"I think I can live without school for a day. What are we doing?"

"I want to talk to Jasper."

Jasper, again. It was strange. In the Cullen family, Jasper was always a little on the fringe part of things but never the center of them.

"Hey!" Jasper pouted.

"She's kind of right, love. You don't like being at the center of things," Alice smiled.

It was my unspoken assumption that he was only there for Alice.

"Well, that one's not true," Jasper really frowned this time.

Carlisle, however, was smiling and then read the next line.

I had the sense that he would follow Alice anywhere,

"Well, that one is true," Alice smiled at him and he couldn't help the smile that appeared on his face.

but that this lifestyle was not his first choice. The fact that he was less committed to it than the others was probably why he had more difficulty keeping it up.

"Hmph," Jasper huffed.

"It doesn't seem like she knows you very well," Alice frowned.

"Except for his love for you," Esme pointed out with a smile.

"I would imagine that Jasper isn't really around her that much," Edward explained, "with everything that happened..."

"No, I wouldn't be," Jasper bowed his head. "I just wish she didn't think that way."

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll understand you better soon,"Alice encouraged.

"Right," Jasper sighed.

At any rate, I'd never seen Edward feel dependent on Jasper. I wondered again what he'd meant about Jasper's expertise. I really didn't know much about Jasper's history, just that he had come from somewhere in the south before Alice found him. For some reason, Edward had always shied away from any questions about his newest brother. And I'd always been too intimidated by the tall, blond vampire who looked like a brooding movie star to ask him outright.

Jasper seemed to be even more depressed about that and Alice took his hand for support, almost as though she was the one who could calm his nerves.

When we got to the house, we found Carlisle, Esme, and Jasper watching the news intently, though the sound was so low that it was unintelligible to me. Alice was perched on the bottom step of the grand staircase, her face in her hands and her expression discouraged. As we walked in, Emmett ambled through the kitchen door, seeming perfectly at ease. Nothing ever bothered Emmett.

"Nope!" Emmett laughed. "It looks like she understand me just fine."

"Yeah, because that's such a challenge," Rosalie teased and Emmett pouted.

"Hey, Edward. Ditching, Bella?" He grinned at me.

"We both are," Edward reminded him.

Emmett laughed. "Yes, but it's her first time through high school. She might miss something."

Edward rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored his favorite brother.

"Hey!" Jasper said at the same time that Emmett said, "That's right!"

"Er... that was just Bella saying that," Edward said to Jasper.

"But I am your favorite, Eddy," Emmett said, patting Edward on the back.

"Not at the moment, you're not," Edward grumbled.

He tossed the paper to Carlisle.

"Did you see that they're considering a serial killer now?" he asked.

Carlisle sighed. "They've had two specialists debating that possibility on CNN all morning."

"We can't let this go on."

"Let's go now," Emmett said with sudden enthusiasm. "I'm dead bored."

"Emmett!" Rosalie hissed and Esme looked worried at the thought.

"Er... Sorry," Emmett said, shrugging. He wasn't going to change.

A hiss echoed down the stairway from upstairs.

"She's such a pessimist," Emmett muttered to himself.

Edward agreed with Emmett. "We'll have to go sometime."

Rosalie appeared at the top of the stairs and descended slowly. Her face was smooth, expressionless.

Carlisle was shaking his head. "I'm concerned. We've never involved ourselves in this kind of thing before. It's not our business. We aren't the Volturi."

"I don't want the Volturi to have to come here," Edward said. "It gives us so much less reaction time."

"And all those innocent humans in Seattle," Esme murmured. "It's not right to let them die this way."

"I know," Carlisle sighed.

"Oh," Edward said sharply, turning his head slightly to look at Jasper. "I didn't think of that. I see. You're right, that has to be it. Well, that changes everything."

"What?" Emmett asked, his mouth going thin.

"The new..." Jasper started, rolling his eyes.

"He knows," Edward groaned, rolling his eyes.

I wasn't the only one who stared at him in confusion, but I might have been the only one who didn't look slightly annoyed.

"I think you'd better explain to the others," Edward said to Jasper. "What could be the purpose of this?" Edward started to pace, staring at the floor, lost in thought.

I hadn't seen her get up, but Alice was there beside me. "What is he rambling about?" she asked Jasper. "What are you thinking?"

Jasper didn't seem to enjoy the spotlight. He hesitated, reading every face in the circle - for everyone had moved in to hear what he would say - and then his eyes paused on my face.

"You're confused," he said to me, his deep voice very quiet.

There was no question in his assumption. Jasper knew what I was feeling, what everyone was feeling.

"We're all confused," Emmett grumbled.

Everyone chuckled at that.

"You can afford the time to be patient," Jasper told him. "Bella should understand this, too. She's one of us now."

His words took me by surprise. As little as I'd had to do with Jasper, especially since my last birthday when he'd tried to kill me, I hadn't realize that he thought of me that way.

Jasper just bowed his head again at that sentence, especially at the reminder that he had tried to kill her.

"I think she's happy though," Alice said sweetly to him, "that you think that way about her."

"Yeah," Jasper said, looking a little less glum.

"How much do you know about me, Bella?" Jasper asked.

"Not much at all," Emmett smiled.

"It looks like you're going to tell her about your past," Edward said. "I think she'll understand you a lot better from now on."

Emmett sighed theatrically, and plopped down on the couch to wait with exaggerated impatience.

"Not much," I admitted.

Jasper stared at Edward, who looked up to meet his gaze.

"No," Edward answered his thought. "I'm sure you can understand why I haven't told her that story. But I suppose she needs to hear it now."

"You know, for trying to convince her that becoming a vampire is a bad thing, you don't really use the deterrents available to you," Rosalie said. "Our stories probably could help you with that."

"Yeah, well they're not really happy stories," Edward said. "Not something that I want her to know."

"Right," Rosalie said. "Maybe you're not as opposed to the idea of her changing as you say you are."

"No, I am," Edward frowned at her.

Jasper nodded thoughtfully, and then started to roll up the arm of his ivory sweater.

I watched, curious and confused, trying to figure out what he was doing. He held his wrist under the edge of the lampshade beside him, close to the light of the naked bulb, and traced his finger across a raised crescent mark on the pale skin.

It took me a minute to understand why the shape looked strangely familiar.

"Oh," I breathed as realization hit. "Jasper, you have a scar exactly like mine."

I held out my hand, the silvery crescent more prominent against my cream skin than against his alabaster.

Jasper smiled faintly. "I have a lot of scars like yours, Bella."

Jasper's face was unreadable as he pushed the sleeve of his thin sweater higher up his arm. At first my eyes could not make sense of the texture that was layered thickly across the skin.

Curved half-moons crisscrossed in a feathery pattern that was only visible, white on white as it was, because the bright glow of the lamp beside him threw the slightly raised design into relief, with shallow shadows outlining the shapes. And then I grasped that the pattern was made of individual crescents like the one on his wrist . . . the one on my hand.