Bella didn't know when everything had gone so wrong. She tried to figure out when as the inferno coursed through her body. She groaned, haunted by the sight of her mother's dead eyes, the last thing she had seen before the horrible burning.

It had probably started after Renee's last boyfriend had cut off contact. Bella had like Phil as much as she liked any of them. He had seemed to actually like the flighty Renee Dwyer, and he had been kind - until he stopped answering her calls.

James had been the next boyfriend. He was attractive, Bella would give him that, but there was something about him that made her slightly uncomfortable. Still, she had pushed it down and smiled, tolerating him because Renee crying into ice cream over Phil had made Bella's heart hurt. James seemed to dazzle her, and so Bella kept her mouth shut.

Now, three months later, she wished she had done something. He had pretended there was something wrong with the car, asked them to step out for a minute, into one of a dozen side alleys, and then before she could even register he had moved, her mother was hanging limp from his arms.

"Mom!" She shrieked as James threw her mother aside like a broken doll, and turned on her, blood dripping from his teeth.

"Don't scream, Bella." James crooned. "This is all because of you. You have no idea how you smell. I had to go through her to get to you." His eyes looked strange again, like they were sometimes, looking red instead of brown.

Bella had taken a step back, wishing that she had something to defend herself from the monster "Get...get away." She managed, trying to duck under his arm. He pushed her back against the tan brick of the wall behind her., as she tried to throw her elbows to do something. "Get off of me!"

"I don't think so, Bella." James replied. "It's been a fun hunt for a few months, but the game is over now." He leaned down and his teeth went into her shoulder, and the ungodly burning started, her vision started to go strange at the corners. "No!" She said, fighting as hard as she could. "Let go of me you bastard!"

The burning grew worse, and just before her vision went back, someone else appeared. He was blurry, all she could make out was gold, and hope managed to curl in her chest. "Help…" She managed to rasp.

Her golden saviour seemed to growl, ripping James away and as she slid to the ground, unable to make her burning limbs hold her up, she watched as he tore the man apart. The urge to give in to the darkness and the burning was strong, but her last thought, before the fire consumed her, was a feeling of safety.

Jasper Whitlock hadn't intended on being a white knight when he had started walking through Sedona. If anything, he had been testing himself, trying to prove to himself yet again that he was strong enough for the vegetarian vampire lifestyle. It wasn't ideal, but he needed a break from his 'family.' He cared about them all, he did. He would always be grateful to Alice for finding him, telling him that there was another way. However, he could only handle being the seventh wheel for so long. He had decided that before he started his next senior year, he would take the summer and travel. At first Carlisle had objected, before Alice, in that cryptic way she had, had declared that he should do it.

His first stop was a long overdue visit to see Peter and Charlotte, but after that, he had simply wandered, like he had for so many years. He had stayed in the south, enjoying the heat and the familiarity, for all the darker memories it brought. Which was how he found himself hearing someone calling for help.

It had twisted something inside him, and he wondered how horrible it would be if he fell off the wagon to save someone. He had approached, and then realised quite quickly what was happening. The scene was a familiar one that made rage bubble in his veins. He couldn't help the drained woman, but even injected with venom the girl was fighting, and without knowing why, he had ended the other vampire, with the speed and precision that made him feared. The bastard didn't know what hit him.

He was considering ending the girl, killing her so that she didn't have to suffer this life, but then he realized why he had done it. When she had caught sight of him, the girl hadn't felt fear - she felt hope. When he ended the other vampire, the feeling that had hit him was a potent mixture of gratitude and safety.

No one had ever felt safe with him. Even the Cullens winced at the sight of his scars. Something powerfully strong and possessive grasped hold of him then, and he swung the girl into his arms like a bride, and ran back to Texas, to a little cabin he had kept purely for himself. He placed the whimpering girl in the grasp of the change, onto his rarely used bed, and took up a position at her side, trying to dampen the pain a bit.

Close to the end of the summer, he'd call Carlisle and tell him to make excuses. It would take time to train up a newborn, and Jasper didn't want him to try and talk him out of it. For some strange reason, the feeling of abandoning the girl who had felt safe with him was unconscionable. If he had a few months training under his belt before he told anyone, he'd show he could do it. Of course he could, he had more experience with newborn vampires than anyone.

It would be fine. Totally fine.