A/N: I will not disclose my feelings about abortion, but they are neither here nor there. This is a work of fiction and no malicious intent towards anyone's personal beliefs on the subject is intended. All copyrights and materials that regards to Twilight or any of the subsequent novels belong to SM. No copyright infringement intended. Look down below for songs list! 3

Perish

Bella sat holding her knees while the acrid smoke of her cigarette got caught in her hair. She rolled her eyes as she looked across the court yard of the community college she had just started attending earlier that fall. Three fundamentalist Christians were picketing there, holding up three by four foot posters with aborted babies on them. She thought it was a little much. Shouldn't they be at an abortion clinic, since when did this shit hole community college become a safe haven for newly graduated teens where they could abort their unborn children? She suspected that they thought that's what the new technology building was for. She watched as what must have been one hundred and fifty students back the abortion protesters to the wet brick wall of the old building. They were chanting 'assholes! assholes!' over and over again, throwing coffee and random bits of debris at them. Maybe it wasn't normal, since everyone seemed apathetic towards the three men, but Bella felt bad for them. So she only watched on peacefully and smoked her cigarette.

She did however, think that there posters were disgusting, all the while not understanding why anyone thought that they could sway the minds of men holding posters with dead fetuses on them. They couldn't, so why fight them. Bella thought to herself that abortion might be one of those topics that people couldn't really change their mind about once they fully knew what the topic meant. It was one of those deep-seeded ideas that grew in the darkest parts of ones moral compass. Either you were for it or you weren't.

Looking down at her cell phone, Bella saw that there were five short minutes until her next class started again. She had been waiting it out, hoping that the crowd would die down, because on the other side of that crowd were the stairs that led to the first level of the school, where her History class was. She squinted towards the riot dubiously. She had had a tough year an half and she wasn't sure if she could slip through unharmed. At barely one hundred and ten pounds, Bella was the thinnest she had ever been. Coupled with her clumsiness, she was aware of the risks involved in trying to get through throngs of over caffeinated eighteen and nineteen year olds who were getting violent. Bella sat up and started walking towards the riot anyway, knowing that she would have to get close to the front to reach the stair case.

Bella bit her lip and walked quickly towards the crowd. Breaching the outside was easy enough, as the people were dispersed in a more even way. It got harder as people became more compact. She had to shove with her shoulders moving students out of her way. They didn't even notice her as she made her way through to the front left corner of the crowd. Bella had been pushed back several times, but she moved forward, breathing out heavily. She was maybe three steps away from breaking free when she felt something grab her long hair heavily and tug viciously pulling her entire weight back.

"Yo, buddy!" She yelled angrily, trying to free herself, but the culprit wouldn't let up, only holding her tightly to himself. She couldn't see him, but all of the sudden she could see the entire crowd, as the man holding her dragged her to the front. She felt a coldness on her neck. The juxtaposition of the warm hand holding it there was alarming. Barely any of the students took notice right away.

"Back up!" He yelled. "Back up, or I'll slice her neck!"

Bella's breath stuck in her throat, the staccato of them not getting past the top of her esophagus. She imagined the breath only freeing itself when it came out of the hole the man would surly make in her neck. Bella looked into the face of an alarmed student in front of her. The boy was in one of her classes, though at this moment she couldn't remember which one. His blue eyes were wide in fear, the eyelashes around them dark and prominent. His lips were open wide in shock, as the drink in he was holding fell from his hand creating a splash that hit his and Bella's shoes. People around him started to back away, the right side of the crowd still had not taken notice, though slowly, like an assembly line they started to move themselves out of the way until there was about five feet between the three men and Bella. All of the sudden the crowd was silent, taking a collective gasp. Bella looked in her peripheral and saw the abortion posters, smashed in half, only one surviving. The other two men seemed just as surprised as the crowd.

"What are you doing Marcus?" The man to Bella's captor's immediate right asked shocked.

"They won't listen. They are so dumb! What's wrong with them?" He held the knife closer to her neck then.

Bella had been ready to die for so long, but in this moment—, she knew that she didn't want to die like this. She could hear cops sirens going off in the distant and fleetingly thought of Charlie. She didn't want him to see her like this. She didn't want him to think she was an idiot and let this happen to herself. It was a vain thought, but Charlie had always said that she was a danger magnet, just like everyone else had.

The breath she was holding in her stomach released itself harshly revealing words, "Let me go." It came out as a rasp, but she was sure he heard them.

"No." He whispered. "You're just like them! You don't care."

He wasn't wrong. She didn't care. She didn't care enough to join the riot, she only wanted to go to her class.

"I wasn't even—." She started, but he interrupted by pushing the knife farther into her skin. She closed her eyes to the crowd, who were as breathless as her a minute before hand, but Bella's breath returned to her steadily. She felt high and could no longer hear what the man was saying to the crowd. All she heard was white noise, a peaceful ocean in her ear. She felt close to fainting, but the feeling in between her ears was almost euphoric. She could hear him then, and her eyelids lifted themselves gently. She saw him then.

"Jas—per." She slurred. She didn't know why her body wasn't letting her feeling the disbelief her head recognized. He didn't look at her. He was standing in front of them, his held tilted to the right, looking into the eyes of Bella's captor.

"Let her go, son." His southern accent was deep—, archaic.

Bella looked at the crowd. They all seemed in disbelief as well. Was it because of how beautiful he was? She though wearily. Was it because he was so assured?

They stepped back a few more feet anyway. Bella looked into Jasper's eyes, they were coals, not to be mistaken for a brown of any kind. He had never looked so inhuman. She looked towards the sky. The sun would be coming out soon. Some of the UV rays escaped the clouds already, and she noticed some of the scars on the right side of Jasper's cheek and neck. Something only fabled about to her before. Bella knew these three men were seeing it too. It must have been odd: Jasper calling this old man 'son'. The man didn't respond and Jasper only stepped closer, showing his teeth, but he didn't seem to need to speak again. He only reached his right hand forward. Bella saw it getting closer to her neck and the knife. Scars seemed to bloom on his hand as well as a light sparkling sheen. He moved his hand there and took the knife away easily. Bella only felt the coldness radiating from Jasper's hand. She fell forward into his arms and he backed her up easily. It was only then Bella noticed that the crowd had dispersed and that there was a legion of cops behind Jasper, guns aimed at the three men. She could see my father in the distance, a fellow cop holding him back. Bella had sea-legs and Jasper carried her like a baby to him.

"Isabella!" He wretched, his arms held open wide. Jasper deposited her into his arms carefully.

"You're insane boy!" Charlie yelled. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Bella felt her father's love then, all encompassing. She passed out grateful.

A/N: Songs listened to during the making of this chapter: "I Was Broken" by Marcus Foster, "Never Bloom Again" by The Perishers, "Trick of the Moonlight" by Roger Glover, and "How Come You Never Go" There by Feist.