Somewhere in Western Canada, near the Alaskan border

The next day they picked up John's truck from the lot it had been stored in. While the vampires drove, Lily slept. Occasionally she woke for a bathroom break or to eat something then she went right back to sleep. Carlisle monitored her condition and declared it part of the healing process.

When they arrived at the house, the entire family was waiting outside for them. Emmett had barely stopped the car before the back door was thrown open and Lily was scooped up into Jasper's arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his chest. "Hi, Jazzy."

A smile quirked on his face. "Hello, darlin'." He hurried her inside and kept her in his arms as he settled on the couch. Alice was immediately on one side of him and Edward on the other. Esme ran a hand over the girl's head and then hurried toward the kitchen to fix her something to eat.

The family gathered around them, just wanting to be near their friend that was hurting so much. Just needing her to know that they were there. That's how things remained for an hour. People shuffled around but they remained in the same room. The constant being Jasper and Lily who maintained their positions. She wouldn't even move to eat, much to Esme's worry.

Edward was leaning against the wall, when he finally broke the silence after picking up Jasper's thoughts. "What do you mean you can't tell what she's feeling?"

Everyone's attention snapped to the empath. "I mean I can't read her. She's blank." He brushed some hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. "I keep sending out calming emotions but I have no idea if it's working or not."

Lily turned her face into his chest again as another tear rolled down her cheek. She could only imagine what a wreck she'd be without Jasper. Lowering the block on her thoughts seemed simpler than speaking for the moment. He doesn't need to feel that, Eddie. He didn't kill dad. He didn't...no one needs to feel what I'm feeling right now except me. Why would I torture him? Or you? Then she slid the block back into place before he could see the images of her father's death that seemed to play over and over again in her head.

The mind reader cleared his throat. "She said no one needs to feel what she's feeling right now. She didn't want to torture him."

There is a long stretch of silence until Carlisle breaks it. "Your control has gotten much better. You couldn't block Jasper before."

She sat up slowly and looked at the people around her. She needed to get her shit together. At least a little bit. She owed it to them. Her tongue darted out trying to moisten chapped lips. "Could I get some water?" she asked and a glass appeared in front of her seconds later. After taking a long drink, she moved from Jasper's lap to place her glass on the table.

Instead of returning to where she was, she walked over and pulled Edward to the couch so she could curl into his side. He put his arm around her with a chuckle. "I missed you, too."

Her eyes found Esme. "Could I have some of that food now?"

The woman's eye lit. "Of course."

When Esme returned with the food, Lily sat straight and started eating. After a few bites, she started talking. "I think he followed me home from the marketplace."

The others exchanged glances. "You don't have to do this right now," Alice said.

"Or ever," Carlisle added.

"I know," she said with a nod and another bite of food. "It didn't occur to me at the time, but later it seemed obvious that he was the one watching me. He said as much. The only reason that I'm still alive is he apparently liked to play with his food. John showed up before he could eat me."

"Do you have any idea who this vampire was? Where he came from?" Carlisle asked.

She thought of the Volturi crest tucked in the hidden pocket in her pack and the danger her family would be in if she told them. "No. I have no idea."

***

Lily woke up with a start from her third nightmare of the night. She sat on the edge of the bed and pushed her damp hair from her face. After blowing out her breath, she stood, taking the fuzzy blanket from the bed with her. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and went to find everyone else. The moment her door opened Edward was there. His gaze was worried. "Again?" he asked.

She nodded and let herself fall against his chest. It had been a week since she arrived in the Cullen household and every night her sleep was disturbed by nightmares. Once she located a family member and cuddled for a bit she'd slip back into sleep with no problem. Edward swept her up and carried her to his room. They settled on the couch so she was laying with her head in his lap. She looked up at him with tired eyes while he played with her hair. His eyes were darker than they should have been.

"You need to go hunt," Lily told him with a frown.

"I'm okay."

She shook her head then pulled her blanket up under her chin and got comfortable so she could go back to sleep. "You might be, but you make it hard on Jasper."

The fingers in her hair stilled. "Why would my hunting have any effect on Jazz?"

Her eyes snapped open and she pushed herself up to frown at him. "Don't tell me you don't know this?"

Edward just stared at her obviously completely confused.

"Do none of you know this?"

"Apparently not." He sounded so lost she would have thought it hilarious under other circumstances, but this was about the comfort and happiness of her best friend.

She took a breath before tossing her blanket aside and standing up. She grabbed Edward's hand and dragged him out of the room behind her and into the living room where Jasper and Alice already were. "Family meeting, please," Lily said, raising her voice only slightly. They'd be able to hear her.

Within a minute, everyone was gathered around their faces twisted in concern.

"What is it, Lily?" Carlisle asked. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes. No. Just give me a minute," she said holding up a finger. "First, at this point it might just be easier if I fall asleep with someone there every night. It'd save time and some of my sanity. These nightmares are a bitch."

Carlisle smiled. "We can certainly try and see if it helps."

"Okay, second, I'm going to go off on a tangent here. Just stay with me. From my understanding, the bloodlust, the need to feed, is this thing that's there, always present just sometimes more prevalent than others, right?"

"Pretty much," Alice said with a furrowed brow. "I mean, when you've just fed it's almost not there at all, though we always kind of have it hovering in the background because of our diet."

"So, it's like when you're sad or grieving and it's always there even if maybe you're laughing for a moment because someone told a joke. Or you know, how the love you feel for your family is always there even when you're mad at them. It's always there mixing in with everything else." She looked around the room still seeing confused faces until she meets Jasper's wide eyes. Her gaze softened and she gave him a nod. She didn't miss the venom pooling in his eyes.

"I think I missed something," Emmett said.

Lily sighed. "The bloodlust operates like an emotion. Could even be considered one, like rage. Jasper is an empath living with 6 vampires."

One by one their faces shift into looks of understanding or guilt.

"I never even considered..." Carlisle trailed off and ran a hand through his hair. "How did I not figure this out? How did you?"

Jasper was suddenly by her side wrapping his arms around her. She rubbed a hand along his arm but kept her attention on Carlisle.

"Honestly, I thought you knew or I would have told you. I figured it out when I was working on the emotions block. It's kind of my thing, I guess. I just know how things work in the body. It's hard to explain." Her dad had always told her that she had a tendency to just assume everyone else knew what she did. Like if she could figure it out, so could they. Most of the time she was wrong. Like now.

Carlisle shook his head as if to clear it then clapped his hands together. "Okay, everyone but Jasper and Alice go hunt." He pressed a kiss to Lily's forehead. "Thank you."

"Thank you," Jasper echoed, his voice breaking. "Thank you." He picked her up with one hand and grabbed Alice's hand with the other before taking them to his and Alice's room. He put Lily on the bed and Alice crawled in to lay with her. Jasper sat behind her, his back against the headboard, his thigh pressed against her spine.

Alice smiled at a suddenly exhausted Lily and brushed some hair out of her face. "Thank you for taking care of my Jazzy."

Lily yawned. "You're welcome." Moments later she slipped into a dreamless sleep.