Contest entry for the P.S. I Love You Contest
Title: Kill Me, Heal Me
Pairing: Jasper X Bella, Edward X Bella
Rating: M
Word count: 8,371
Summary: Bella Swan had made her home with bricks of insanity and roof of delusion, and she resided in that home with her long dead love. One day a stranger knocked on the door of the house in her head and that was the day everything changed…
DISCLAIMER: Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.
Kill Me, Heal Me
Every story has a start,
Mine was with a broken heart…
"They are coming back, princess. They want to get inside your head again," the boy condemned, his gold eyes dripping with malice.
The girl sighed and turned her face away. There was a small window in her room. Sometimes, she could see the birds fly in the azure blue and the sight was enough to make her forget her prison and her shackles.
"Are you listening, princess?"
"You are shouting rather loudly, Jasper, so it's a logical conclusion that I'm listening to your rant," she answered tiredly.
"Logical?" The boy—Jasper—arched his brow and stared at the petite girl sitting on the narrow bed. "If logic had anything to do with all this, you wouldn't have been the only one who could see me, Bella…"
~KMHM~
Edward Cullen turned the pages of the slim file again. There wasn't much in it-just basic information about the patient and a grainy photograph that had been shot at the time of her admittance. He could see the morphine in her dark glassy orbs that stared back at him through the paper.
Isabella Swan.
"What do you want from me, Aro? This girl is crazy and four leading men in the field of Psychiatry swear by their conclusion."
"But you haven't. Pronounced her mad, that is. I want you to break her plea of insanity, Edward."
Aro Volturi looked far older than his age. There was silver at the temples of his dark hair which had been nonexistent few years ago. His healthy pale skin had gone grey—a color that signified closed rooms and no sunlight. His once immaculate suit hung loosely on his frame.
He didn't look like the man who had the world at his fingertips.
"Sending her to her death won't bring your son back," Edward said softly, aware of the grief that had found a home in the eyes of his friend.
"Don't talk like you know what I'm going through, Edward," Aro spat.
"It's been four years, Aro. Jasper is dead," Edward asserted.
"And she killed him," Aro shouted, madness escaping his dark eyes to take a malevolent presence in the room. "She was the reason Jasper died."
Edward Cullen knew arguing was futile, but he persisted for the sake of the friend he'd once known and not this grief-maddened man, "Will it bring Jasper back?"
Aro lowered his head and Edward was almost sure that he wasn't going to answer. But then Aro Volturi raised his head and Edward was hit with the hate that he saw on Aro's face. "She took my son; I'll take her life…"
~KMHM~
He sang the song of one word,
The litany of love remained unheard…
"So, all ready for the new psychiatrist, princess?" Jasper asked.
She nodded, afraid that if she spoke, he'd know how scared she was.
He got up to take his leave. She didn't know where he went when he wasn't with her. He'd never divulged the information and she'd never asked.
"Jasper?" her voice was timid and maybe he heard the unspoken plea.
"Yes, Princess?" He retracted his steps, coming to crouch in front of where she sat with her back against the wall.
"You'll be there, right?"
He looked at her for the longest moment and she was afraid he would start laughing any minute now, but there was no mockery on his face when he took her hand and brought it to his lips.
"You can bet on it, princess…"
~KMHM~
Edward was still invested in the file when his car came to a stop and his chauffeur got out to open his door. He could see the Director of Seattle Correctional Facility waiting at the steps of the building to welcome him.
People generally rolled out the red carpet for his arrival.
At the age of thirty-six, Edward Cullen was at the pinnacle of his career. Dubbed as the "God of the mind", Dr. Cullen was rumored to possess the healing touch when it came to his patients.
The leading psychiatrist of his age, he was a man who only accepted cases that intrigued him.
So, what was he doing here?
Doing a favor for his friend, of course.
He too remembered the gruesome murders of James Madden and Laurent Vishies. Isabella Swan had hacked both men to pieces with a kitchen knife.
The defense had succeeded in proving that the girl had been mentally unstable at the time of the act and hence the jury had acquitted her of all charges.
She'd been transferred to the Seattle Correctional facility as she'd been a minor at the time and she had no family.
He didn't remember much about the trial as he himself had been going through a messy divorce with his wife Irina.
Jasper Volturi had only been reported missing till that time.
"Welcome, Dr. Cullen. It's such a privileged to have you here," the mousy-haired woman gushed as she pumped his hand with gusto.
"I'm sure it is, Ms…"
"Cope," she supplied.
"Then lead me to the patient, Ms. Cope."
~KMHM~
He peered into her eyes, clutched her too close,
The cold still permeated her bones and she wilted like a rose…
Bella fidgeted in her chair, tugging at the hem of her pale blue jumpsuit.
Where was Jasper?
He'd promised he'd be here.
The door on the far side of the room creaked open and she whipped her head to take a look at the visitor. It couldn't be Jasper. He never came through doors.
The man who entered the room was… beautiful.
He looked like a movie star she'd seen once. Maybe. She no longer remembered her life before this place clearly. It was all in flashes and hazy pictures.
"Hello, Isabella."
"Say hi to doctor douche, princess," Jasper spoke suddenly from behind her and she jumped from her chair, rounding to give him a piece of her mind.
But then she saw the man looking at her through impossibly green eyes.
Green like the trees that had stood proudly in the back of her home in Forks. Green like the woods they'd dragged her and Jasper into.
No. No. She wasn't going to think about that.
"Isabella?" he enquired as he walked to the chair that was placed opposite her.
"Hello."
"Look at him," Jasper sneered. "Coming here to get in your head, to make sense of your thoughts and memories—who does he think he is?"
"Quiet, Jasper," she hissed from the corner of her mouth, trying too hard not to give anything away to this stranger.
"What was that, Isabella?"
"Nothing," she said hurriedly. "Nothing at all."
The man smiled. It was the smile that vultures gave frogs before they dived in and carried them away.
"So, Isabella, do you know why you are here?"
"Is he daft, princess? Tell him you're here because you like the décor of this place," Jasper deadpanned.
She couldn't stop the giggle that escaped her lips before she clamped her lips to maintain a serious façade. Jasper always did this. He made her laugh like a loon when the doctors came.
"I don't know," she managed to say after few minutes during which the man's invasive gaze had not left her face.
"Do you know one Jasper Volturi, Isabella?"
Jasper left her side to stand at the back of man's chair. His lips were curled in hatred and his eyes glittered in fury. "Should I kill him, princess?" he asked, his voice barely leashing the anger she knew he was capable of exhibiting. "Should I choke him? What right has he to demand answers from you? Can't they leave you alone? And me along with you?"
"Jasper," she whispered in warning.
"No, Bella. They come back again and again, just to cut over the scabs and they make you bleed. Why do you let them?"
"Isabella, did you know Jasper Volturi?" the man asked again.
"Yes," Jasper shrieked from behind the man. "She knows me. Will you take her life for it?"
"Jasper…"
"Let me burn the world for you, princess," he pleaded. "Let me take you away from here…"
~KMHM~
Edward noticed her closely.
Her eyes were fixated over his shoulder and she kept saying "Jasper" over and over again. And then her voice would change, become deeper, her face would contort in a gruesome mask of someone who wasn't there and she would babble to herself.
The spontaneity with which she changed her voice didn't seem fake, but she didn't seem like a lunatic who'd chop up two men in a bout of insanity either.
But then appearances were deceptive, weren't they?
No one knew more about the depravities of the mind than he did.
"Isabella?"
Her eyes met his and in them, he saw a panic that couldn't be described in words.
She was going to leave her chair any moment now.
His body grew alert and he minutely shifted to his left.
She was right handed. The attack would likely come from her dominant hand.
As expected she did leap from her chair but not to hurt him.
No, Isabella Swan was a picture of elegance and grace as she pirouetted from her chair to the back of his. Her hands grabbed air as if she was holding a hand and she leaned towards someone only she could see.
"Jasper," she whispered again and his blood ran cold.
The syllables were spoken lovingly. She caressed the name with her soft voice.
"Only for you, princess," she said in much guttural voice unlike her own. Her hands moved in the air as if her fingers were running through someone's hair and at the same time she leaned her face to one side as if she were accepting someone's pat on her cheek.
He sat unmoving during the whole debacle, carefully filing away the details for a later re-examination as he watched her mutter a few words to herself and then return to her chair as if nothing had happened.
Just how crazy was Isabella Swan?
~KMHM~
Their story was lost in the pages of age,
He slit his wrists to pay the last homage…
Jasper was in a snit.
He threw what meager possessions she'd been allowed to keep from her former life against the wall.
"Jasper," she tried again.
His answer was to chuck a drawing pad against the wall, where it landed open on a sketch of his face.
"Why, princess? Why did you save him?"
"You can't kill everyone, Jasper," she answered sadly, picking up her sketch pad and a pencil. She returned to her bed and was in the process of opening a blank page to sketch the man when Jasper snatched the sketch pad away.
"Why can't I kill him?" he hissed. "How is he different from the bastards who hurt you?"
As soon as the question left his mouth, her eyes grew shuttered and her hands stilled. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"Well I do," he asserted. "Remember James and Laurent, princess?"
"No," she answered woodenly.
"Liar," he said softly, his hands baring the side of her collarbone where countless round scars dotted her skin. His fingers moved slowly over the raised skin, his breath falling on the ruined skin.
"Tell me you don't remember the burn, Bella."
Her hands fisted in the sheets as she tried to keep down the terror that was slowly rising inside her.
Vague shapes, broken conversations—she could hear the footsteps on the linoleum floor.
"Tell me they don't haunt your dreams, Bella."
No. No. She won't remember.
She desperately shook her head. He couldn't make her remember.
The blood, the stench—
She gave a blood-curdling scream before passing out.
~KMHM~
James Madden and Laurent Vishies had been chopped in roughly five pieces apiece and the team that had responded to the 911 call had testified that it had been very difficult to look at the scene objectively with the blood dripping from the ceiling and the walls to pool at the floor in a macabre expression of abstract art.
Isabella Swan had done that.
Vladimir Caliban had been the defense counsel and the man solely responsible for Isabella's acquittal. His brilliant arguments and use of Isabella's frail state for emotional appeal had worked wonders and the jury had leaned entirely in his favor.
Edward was on his way to meet the man.
If anyone had even the slightest insight into what went on in Isabella's mind, it had to be Vladimir.
His car glided smoothly inside the gated property.
The Caliban brothers—Vladimir and Estefan—had built an empire on the foundation of their aristocratic heritage. It had been quite big news when the brothers had left their homeland Romania to settle in the US. Their decision to pursue law had kept the media busy for years to come.
The brothers had a knack of taking on cases where the chances of acquittal were slim to none and then they turned it around and let people like Isabella walk free.
His car came to a stop before the gothic manor house. He could spot the butler waiting at the door to escort him inside.
He was sure he could at least get an answer to why Jasper Volturi had been killed.
~KMHM~
His kiss was an apology,
A sorry offered on her bloodied lips…
She gradually came to her senses and the first thing she felt was that she couldn't move.
This had not happened before.
She gingerly opened her eyes and found herself staring at the faces of various nurses of the facility and Ms. Cope.
"What happened?"
"You were hitting your head against the wall, Bella," Ms. Cope informed her sadly and motioned a nurse who was standing at the back to come forward.
The nurse had a tray of meds and Bella could spy the syringe as well.
"I'm fine, Ms. Cope," she tried to reason. "I just had a fight with Jasper. He was very angry with me."
Ms. Cope gave her a miserable smile as the nurse picked up the loaded syringe.
They couldn't make her sleep.
The voices—she could hear them when she slept. She didn't want to listen.
"This is what you get for telling the truth, princess," Jasper sneered. He was standing at some distance, from where he could observe the unfolding drama without getting in the way. "They will never believe you slipped and hit your head."
"Jasper," she pleaded, begged him to understand but he was still angry.
"You need to remember the nightmare, Bella."
Soon everything faded away as she fell into darkness…
~KMHM~
"Isabella saw what no sixteen year old should, Dr. Cullen," Vladimir remarked as he sipped his tea, his eyes faraway. "Charles Swan was on to Vishies and Madden's sick little game. These men, they brainwashed the runaways and used the children as their drug mules. Apart from that, James Madden was a man of perverse tastes. There had been numerous disappearances of young girls throughout the years in which Madden had been suspected but no one had been able to pin anything on him. Let alone the fact that the bodies had never been found."
"Doesn't explain how Jasper Volturi got mixed up in everything." Edward pretended to taste the beverage in his cup. He'd always abhorred tea.
"Young love, Dr. Cullen," Vladimir chuckled. "It's as wonderful as it is impulsive. Isabella had fought with her father that day and it was guilt that brought her back to her home that night. Jasper Volturi was just dropping her off."
"Why kill Jasper, Vladimir?" Edward asked. "Aro Volturi would've paid through his nose for the safety of his only son."
"Who knows what happened after Charles Swan was shot dead. The only thing that I know is that Isabella was never guilty for saving herself."
"And Jasper? What about him?" Edward couldn't stop himself.
"What happened with that young man was unfortunate, but Isabella had nothing to do with it, Dr. Cullen." Vladimir's eyes grew steely. "I told Aro back when he came to me to persuade me to drop the case and I will tell you again: Isabella has suffered enough, Dr. Cullen. Don't punish her for surviving just because a grieving father can't accept that his only son is gone."
~KMHM~
Soft words, even softer breaths,
You tempt me in thousand different ways…
The man had come again.
But this time they were not sitting in the room. They were walking outside and Bella reveled in the sunlight falling on her skin. They'd kept her bound to her bed for three days despite her reassurance that she was fine and she'd done nothing like banging her head against the wall.
"So, Isabella, what is your favorite color?" the man asked abruptly and Jasper sniggered. She shot him a dirty glance.
"Gold," she answered promptly and continued walking across the path they'd already walked on thrice.
"Any specific reason?" the question came again.
"Tell him, princess," Jasper said smugly. "Tell him why you love gold."
She ignored him. She was still not talking to him.
"My favorite color is red," the man said after a moment. "Red like blood."
Blood dripping from the walls. Jasper screaming—
She shook her head to clear her thoughts.
"Isabella, would you like to sit there?" He pointed towards the shade of a cherry tree.
"Yes, Isabella," Jasper mocked. "Why don't you go and sit with the handsome doctor."
"Shut up," she spat.
"Did you say anything?"
She turned towards the man and gave him a smile before shaking her head. She took his hand and pulled him towards the tree. They sat with their backs propped against the trunk. She sighed at the feel of the roughness against the thin fabric of her jumpsuit.
Jasper was still lounging at a distance, trying very hard to appear inconspicuous as he eavesdropped on her conversation.
"I don't even know your name," she said innocently, her eyes on the grass that her fingers were busy uprooting.
"You can call me Edward."
"Hello, Edward. I'm Bella." She offered her hand and he shook it after few seconds of consideration.
"Enchanted to meet you, Bella," he said politely, his lips curved in a slight smile.
"Liar," she admonished lightly. "Nobody is ever enchanted in my company. Jasper says they all come to find out if I'm crazy or not."
"Are you crazy, Bella?" It was a sincere question, one that she thought about for some time before answering.
"People say so sometimes, but Jasper says they are idiots." She giggled at that thought and Jasper gave her a glare from where he was standing.
"Jasper?" Edward asked tentatively.
"He's standing there." She pointed to where a sullen Jasper Volturi stood with his hands in his pockets and his lips pursed in a ferocious scowl.
"You're making a spectacle of yourself again, princess. He can't see me." Jasper smirked.
Bella turned to Edward, her eyes scrunched in contemplation. "Can you see Jasper, Edward?"
~KMHM~
What was he supposed to say?
Edward didn't know if he was to nod his assent that yes he could see a dead Jasper Volturi somehow standing near the wall of the building.
Could she really see Jasper? And if yes, then why?
Minute after minute, Isabella Swan was starting to become a challenging case for his ego which was the size of the Saturn, or so his brother Emmett said.
"Edward?" she prodded again. He looked at her young face that had lost all traces of the girl she'd been. Her bones protruded from beneath her skin and her standard Seattle Correctional Facility jumpsuit hung on her frame like a shirt on a stick.
Her dark chocolate eyes were trained expectantly on him.
She must have asked the same question countless times before, trying to justify her sickness to her own mind. How many had answered in affirmative?
"Yes, Bella. I can see him standing there," he lied knowing that he was descending into muddy waters. "Why is he making such faces? Why don't you call him to join us?"
"Jasper, don't be a dick," she shouted.
"You wish, princess," she said immediately in a nasty voice, her face not at all like Bella.
"He's being difficult." She pouted.
"Is he always like this?" Edward asked.
She shook her head as she muttered something under her breath. "He cares for me."
Anyone who talked like this with Isabella Swan would never suspect that she was crazy, but she was.
Her psyche had fractured in half and somehow, by some sheer miracle or plain will, instead of ending with a different personality, she'd kept Jasper Volturi alive in her head.
Did she even realize that the boy she talked to was dead? Long gone, never to return?
Jasper Volturi had remained missing for more than three years and then one day a hiker had found a skull on the trail in the woods of Forks, Washington.
The search of the woods had resulted in more body parts being found from different sites.
A DNA report had dashed the hopes that had kept Aro Volturi on his feet that one day Jasper would return.
"Edward?"
"Hmm?"
"Will you come to see me again? I get rather lonely with just Jasper for company." She was twisting her fingers in her lap.
Edward Cullen had always had a weakness for puzzles, and she was proving to be the most complex one he had ever come across.
He would be damned if he accepted defeat before trying.
"I will try, Bella." He gave her a smile as they continued to sit beneath the tree, each lost in their own thoughts.
~KMHM~
Lips may utter the truth but your eyes lie,
You may say you don't care but your heart says you're mine…
"Bella?"
She ignored him and continued sketching. The face on the paper was slowly coming to life. Despite the lack of colored pencils, she thought she could see the green of the eyes that were taking shape beneath the tip of her pencil. If she moved the paper a certain angle and opened her eyes suddenly, she could pretend that the hair she'd drawn was golden mahogany with thousands of shades of red in its splendor.
Now for the lips—
"Forgetting me already, princess?" Jasper asked snidely.
The question was a slap—one aimed to remind her who and what he was in her life. The sketch pad slipped from her fingers and lay forgotten on the bed as her scared eyes looked at him.
"One would assume I'm no longer needed, princess."
She frantically shook her head. Jasper was her everything. Was he going away?
He couldn't leave her.
Run away, Bella; I'll keep them busy.
No, not without you, Jasper…
"Jasper…"
He came to sit in front of her, the gold of his eyes sad and filled with silent apologies.
"You're everything," he said. "You've always been my everything, Bella, and just the thought that you might not need me any longer fills me with anger."
He pulled her into his arms; her legs went around his waist and her arms around his throat. He was a beautiful specimen of masculinity—all golden good looks, recklessness in his eyes and a devilish smirk on his lips. Unlike the dark green of Edward's eyes, Jasper's was gold—a molten, fiery gold.
Why was she thinking about Edward right now?
Their noses were almost touching and the breath from his open mouth fell on her lips. They were entwined in each other, breast to chest, her soft curvy abdomen to his flat, muscled one.
Jasper's hand traced his name on her back over the fabric. It was softest of touches—a butterfly caress—that made her languid and drowsy.
When he was like this, it was difficult to imagine that he could be cruel and heartless.
"Forgive me?" His nose skimmed her collarbone, lips leaving almost-there kisses.
"Hmm." She always forgot herself in the spell he weaved.
"Oh, come now, princess—you can do better that that."
"Like what?" she murmured.
His answer was the softest brush of his lips on hers.
I can see the whole world in your eyes and I can taste oblivion on your lips…
Had he said that?
Loving you is the best thing I've ever done in my life, Bella, and even my straight-laced father would agree with that statement…
I'm sorry, Bella, someone shrieked in her head and the voice sounded like Jasper's.
But he was kissing her.
Are you crazy, Isabella? Green eyes peering closely at her, looking at her intently as if they could see inside her soul, inside all the secrets she kept.
"Princess?"
She was startled and in her confusion she moved away from Jasper, not noticing that his eyes darkened in anger.
"What is it, Bella?" he asked brusquely.
"I just… why can't I get Edward out of my head?"
And just as he'd been gentle, Jasper Volturi hissed. His whole countenance changed from that of gentility to malevolence.
"Can't get Edward out of your head? But princess, I've been in your head for the past four years. Don't I come first?"
~KMHM~
When Edward entered her room, his heart stopped for a moment.
She was tied to her bed and even from the door he could see the angry red marks around her wrists. Her face was turned towards the window and she stared at that small pane of glass with a yearning so steep that Edward felt it even without touching her.
"Hello, Bella."
She gave no sign that she'd heard him.
As he walked closer to the chair near her head, he could see the dry tear-stains on her cheeks. His heart gave another painful jolt.
What the fuck?
It had never happened before.
"Bella," he called her name again as he settled in his chair.
She didn't even blink.
He could see the bruises on her arms, the fingerprints that were turning purple.
There were others—marks that silently screamed the fact that someone had hurt her.
That someone had been no one else but her.
Ms. Cope had been waiting for him on the front stairs with a worried countenance and nervous disposition. With fingers twisting in her lap and halting words she'd told him what had happened last night in Bella's room.
The orderlys had heard raised voices and when they'd ventured inside to check, they'd found Bella on her bed, her hands choking herself while she shouted, "I'm sorry, Jasper".
He didn't know why he wanted to turn her face towards him and tell her a thousand different stories so that she could forget the demons in her head.
"Bella?"
"I didn't try to kill myself, Edward," she admitted softly, her face still averted.
His heart went out to her. She was a prisoner of her own mind and he didn't know how to tell her that the marks on her skin had not been left by long-dead Jasper Volturi but by her own hands.
"I know."
She moved her eyes away from the window and looked at him with those injured dark eyes. "Nobody believes me."
He knew.
"Jasper was angry. He never used to be so angry before," she mused.
He didn't know what to say. Should he be angry or should he sympathize? Should he play the concerned friend or detached stranger?
She took the matter out of his hands. "I think about you at the most odd moments." Her eyebrows furrowed. "The color of your eyes—it makes me remember."
Now this was something he could work with.
"What do you remember, Bella?"
"Voices, sometimes. Sometimes it's an image. I don't like remembering. It hurts my head."
~KMHM~
Her madness was as much her refuge as it was her cage.
Edward didn't know how to help. He was a doctor, first and foremost, so Aro's request was the farthest thing from his mind when he looked into her eyes.
"Will you tell me about it, Bella?"
Her eyes were fearful as they kept moving to the corner of her room and returning back to his face. "He's back," she whispered. "And he's still angry."
"I'll keep you safe, Bella."
That single sentence startled both of them.
It made him lower his eyes to the floor and made her face twist as if she'd swallowed something nasty.
"You can't save her," she derided. "She ain't yours to save."
"And she's yours?" Edward retorted.
"She always has been, Edward," Bella spat in a harsh tone. "She was mine when they dragged me away from her. She was mine when they chopped me in pieces in front of her. She was mine when she screamed. She was mine when she turned insane, and I became her everything—her knight in shining armor—in death, as I could never be in life."
Edward took Bella's hand in his, and gently traced the angry red marks as the dark brown eyes continued to spew hate.
"Does she know you're dead, Jasper?" Edward asked softly.
Bella's Jasper was a fractured part of her own sick mind—the mind that had been unable to deal with the trauma of the death of someone she'd loved.
Bella's Jasper might imitate the real one, but in the end, he was and always had been a product of Bella's fear.
Bella's fears and terrors were those of Jasper's.
"Dead?" Bella snapped. "I'm not dead."
Bella thrashed in her bonds, straining against the bindings. Her eyes rolled in her head and her mouth grew slack.
As her body sank into the mattress, he couldn't help but clutch her hands tightly in his. For a moment he did nothing but sit beside the bed of one Bella Swan in whose head lived her long dead love, Jasper.
~KMHM~
"Jasper's gone, Aro. She was not the one who picked the saw to chop your son to pieces."
"Crossed over to the enemy side so quickly, Edward?" Aro Volturi's eyes blazed with the insanity that he accused Bella of.
"Open your eyes, Aro. That girl is not living a life of sunshine and roses in that facility. She has your dead son as her companion in her head."
"So? I should pity her?"Aro got up from his chair, the sound of the scrape echoing throughout the room. "You won't find me shedding tears for the girl who's the very reason why my son isn't here."
Edward didn't know how to make Aro understand.
How could he make this man understand what he had seen in Bella's eyes? How could he detail her helplessness at being the way she was?
"Leave her alone, Aro. She deserves it after everything she's been through." Edward ran a hand over his tired face, covering his eyes lest Aro see the vulnerability Bella somehow generated in him.
"I buried parts of my son, Dr. Cullen," Aro choked. "I buried pieces of bones that had not already turned to dust. I couldn't even make myself to look inside the box that held everything that girl reduced him to." He slowly got up from the chair, his shoulders slumped, his eyes watery.
He carefully extracted a folded piece of linen from his jacket pocket and dabbed at the corner of his eyes. When he raised his head to meet Edward's eyes again, gone was the weak, grief-torn man.
In his place stood a man whose eyes burned with unholy anger.
"You want to play the knight in shining armor, Edward?" he gave a sneer that Edward had seen countless times on Bella's face when she spoke in a deeper voice and called herself Jasper. "I invite you to. Save her if you can, Dr. Cullen. Save her if you dare…"
~KMHM~
World burnt to ashes, my bones ached with grief,
God had once been kind, but now he brilliantly played the thief…
"I'm sorry, princess." His words fell on deaf ears as Bella ignored him effectively. She sat on her bed, sketching Edward as Jasper tried to apologize over and over again.
This time she wasn't going to listen. Jasper was becoming mean.
Edward had promised he would take her out in the grounds again. Ms. Cope had come to free her after Edward had gone, her eyes distressed and her hands holding the tray with her meds. She had held the glass of water as Bella had swallowed her pills dutifully, assuring her that she wouldn't be bound again.
Jasper had sulked in the corner the entire time and called Ms. Cope awful names.
That had been four days ago.
It was rather difficult to ignore Jasper, but this time somehow it was manageable. Whenever he started to talk, she started another sketch of Edward.
"He's just trying to understand what kind of crazy you are, Bella," Jasper whined.
"I'm not crazy," Bella replied immediately. "He said so himself."
Jasper was looking at her as if he were the cat who'd swallowed the canary and then she realized her mistake.
She'd answered him.
She put her sketchpad aside and beckoned him to come closer.
"I always knew you were sensible, princess." Superiority dripped from every word. "After all, if Dr. Cullen saves you then that means I'll be gone, and you wouldn't want that, would you, princess?"
He plopped down beside her, careless in his buoyancy.
So when her fist plummeted in his face, he least expected it…
~KMHM~
When Edward opened Bella's door, she was sitting on her bed with her raised fist as if she'd leveled someone moments ago.
She looked at him guiltily, her eyes glittering and her cheeks stained.
"I-I didn't—he was irritating me," she stammered.
"It's okay, Bella," Edward said. "I'm sure Jasper deserved it."
"You are corrupting her, Dr. Douche," Bella snarled, her hands suddenly cradling her nose.
"And you aren't, Jasper?" Edward pointed. "Your whole existence is an exercise in selfishness."
"Stay away, Cullen."
"Someone else tried the same tactics on me yesterday," Edward remarked. "So, my question is the same as it was yesterday: what will you do if I don't, Jasper?"
Bella's lips stretched into an inhuman smile for a moment before Jasper added, "Enjoy yourself while you can, Edward."
Bella's face slackened and her eyes focused on his face again.
"What were we talking about?"
Before he could answer, she looked around the room with furrowed brows and scrunched nose as if she were missing something.
"What is it, Bella?"
"Jasper's gone, but my hand's still stained with his blood…"
Edward couldn't tell her that her hands were clean. So, he did the next best thing.
He escorted her to the basin so that she could wash her hands, of course.
~KMHM~
The day with Bella had been filled with revelations.
He'd sat with her beneath the old oak in the facility grounds and she'd continued to sketch something. When he'd tried to peek, she'd hidden the page with her hands.
She'd talked about her life, or what she could remember as she'd worked—her father, her friends, and Jasper. She'd painted the life of a happy girl with her words; one who'd wanted to be a writer when she grew up.
As he'd sat with her in the light of the fading sun, all Edward Cullen could wonder was why the world had been so cruel to this one girl. Why had fate decided to punish her so mercilessly?
He rubbed his eyes to ward off the sleep that was slowly trying to creep up on him.
He still had a few more case files to read.
He wanted to know everything he could about what had happened to Bella after her father had been killed.
His eyelids dropped slowly despite his valiant efforts while he was in the middle of a page.
Soon, sleep had carried him off to the land of dreams.
~KMHM~
My lips on yours plead,
Your touch is all I need…
"Must you be this way, Edward?" she giggled as he crawled towards her in his bed.
She was the stuff dreams were made of. Pale luminous skin, cherry red lips, dark mahogany hair that covered her pert naked breasts, chocolate eyes that laughed at him with joy—she was everything he'd ever wanted.
"Don't play games with me, Bella," he growled.
"Oops!" she rolled her eyes as she beckoned him closer. "I am scared."
"You should be." He'd finally caught her and before she could back away any further against the headboard, his hands had fisted in her hair and his lips were on hers.
She tasted divine.
Like the first sunrise that hit a blind man, she was the supernova exploding in his dark universe.
Her tongue peeked out to trace his lips, the tentative touch a lingering sensation on his mouth.
He chased her tongue to the dark depths of her sweet mouth that tempted…
He woke with a start.
He was drenched in sweat, his t-shirt sticking to his body. His sheets were twisted around his legs and to his utter mortification, he was sporting a hard on.
Why had he dreamt of Bella?
Had his mind filled the blanks in a sexual fantasy with Bella's face?
He turned to the opposite side wishing desperately for sleep and hoping that his hard on would go away without his assistance. He didn't want to jack-off to Bella's face in his mind.
She was innocent and sweet, and… she was hot.
His hands crept to the drawstring of his pajamas.
His eyes had wandered when her chest had pressed itself snugly against the thin fabric of her clothes. He had valiantly tried not to feel the heat of her body when she'd trustingly leaned in close to him to seek comfort.
It had never happened before.
Edward Cullen had never found himself being attracted towards a patient, and his patients had included actresses and supermodels suffering from paranoia and anxiety.
His hand gripped his length in a punishing hold.
Bella was… surreal.
Despite the stones life had thrown at her, she still viewed the world through her slightly fractured rose-colored glasses.
And not to mention a plague named 'Jasper's mental acumen'.
And just like that, his erection was gone.
He needed to identify the exact point when Bella's psyche had created Jasper, because until he found her trigger, silencing Jasper was almost impossible…
~KMHM~
"I want to go to Paris someday."
He was startled out of his daydream that involved Bella, a meadow, and sunlight.
"Why Paris?" His eyes were still on the report he was reading, which had been discarded in favor of the daydream.
"Jasper tells me Paris is the most beautiful city in rain. He says…"
The silence prompted him to raise his head. Her eyes stared off into the distance, the pupils dilated as if she were not even here.
"He said he would take you there for your seventeenth birthday," she said in a pained moan, her voice that of dark timbre.
She turned to look at him and in her eyes Edward didn't see Bella.
No, the eyes were that of Jasper, or what Bella had kept alive inside her head.
"She laughed when I offered to take her to Paris. It was one of the sounds that you remember for your entire life—a gentle, sweet sound that you can dream about. I loved her with everything I was, Edward."
"Loved?" Edward asked, discretely filing away all the changes he observed in Bella's personality when Jasper completely took over.
"She's no longer mine, is she?" Jasper hurled. "She dreams about you and then wonders why. She asks me why you are all she can think about."
"What do you say?" Like Bella, her personality too was confused. If anyone knew about the whole truth, it would be 'Jasper'.
"I tell her you're playing with her head." Jasper gave a nasty smile. "A big hotshot like you? What would you need Bella for if not to study her lunacy?"
"She's not your property, Jasper," Edward retorted. "In fact—"
"What were we talking about, Edward?" Bella was back, and she was confused.
Edward decided to take a chance. He didn't know if it was going to pay or not.
"You were telling me about James and Laurent."
It looked as if someone had flipped a switch. She went absolutely silent and the only movement was that of her fingers twisting in her lap.
"Bella?" Had he made a mistake by asking her about her attackers?
"I don't wanna talk about it," she muttered.
"But, Bella—"
"I wanna go inside." Before he could dust himself off from the ground, she was up and walking towards the main doors of the facility.
~KMHM~
I have a thousand apologies,
But I forget them when we meet…
"I told you to forget him," he screamed as she sat shivering in the corner.
Jasper was enraged.
"Today he asked about the bastards and you froze over. What happens when he does it tomorrow, and then the day after tomorrow and then the day after that?"
She whimpered as he paced in front of her, his footsteps making no sound. But then Jasper had always been quiet.
…you'll wake up Charlie, Jasper…
…no chance, princess. I'm as quiet as the night…
…more like howling wolves, you mean…
She closed her eyes and tried to clear her head. She'd been having these flashes more often these days.
"You're a pathetic creature, Bella," Jasper accused. "You created me because you weren't strong enough."
"Cr-Created?"
"Did you forget, princess?" he taunted. "All the blood and all those parts of dear Jasper's body, and you couldn't take it."
"You're alive. You're alive. Jasper, you aren't dead," she sang.
"Oh, I'm dead, princess. Or at least Jasper is. Don't you remember what we did when we finally found a chance?"
…her hands coated with blood, blood pooling beneath her feet…
…a severed head of James Madden staring ahead with his dead eyes…
…blood dripping like tears from Laurent's eye socket…
She vomited.
Jasper laughed.
"Now she remembers! You let me take the pain alone, princess. You let me live with memories while you languished in the blessed valley of forgetfulness," he screamed.
"Stop it," she pleaded, her hands covering her ears, trying too hard to drown out his voice.
"I remembered everything. I ached and hurt, princess. You were so weak that you hid behind me and let me take every scar, every painful part of your past." His hands were sure to leave bruises where they gripped her arm.
"You don't even remember your father, princess. I do," he scoffed. "After everything I've done for you, you still are ready to discard me like a day old newspaper."
"Jasper, no—"
"But I'm not Jasper!"
"No, Jasper, please," she begged, and she didn't even know what she was begging for.
"You need to remember, princess," he said sadly. "Remember…"
~KMHM~
Bella was scared.
She reached for Jasper's hand in the dark. They had been knocked out and transported here to the basement of what she assumed was an old house.
"Are you okay, princess?"
"Hmm."
These men had shot her father. She hoped dad was okay. He would be banging the doors of this house in no time.
Bella hadn't been supposed to be at the house, but then she'd fought with dad before heading out and Jasper had suggested that an apology won't go amiss if she wanted to lay the groundwork for their Paris trip.
"Dad's gonna be okay, isn't he, Jasper?" she asked him as she felt the ground and moved even closer to him.
His hands snaked around her waist and tugged her into his chest. He took his time before answering. "Sure, princess."
He was lying. There was a slight tremor in his voice and that only happened when he was lying.
"Jasper?"
"Hmm?"
"You don't think dad's gonna be okay, do you?" She didn't even want to hear his answer.
"He looked bad, princess, but Charlie's a tough man and he will pull through."
"How long are these people planning to keep us here?"
"I don't know, princess," he sighed. "But I'm sure my dad's gonna miss me if I don't appear on the table by breakfast tomorrow."
Mr. Volturi took the concept of a concerned parent to an entirely new level. He scared her a bit with his manic eyes and boundless energy.
She was sure the National Guard would be beating down the door by the time sun rose tomorrow morning.
But hours turned into days and days into months. No one came except for the horrendous men who slipped their food through the crack between the door and the floor.
Sometimes they would come in during the day and ask her about the photographs despite the fact that she didn't know anything about any photograph and she'd told them so.
Their crude lustful gaze felt too invasive but thankfully they didn't try to touch her. Maybe it was because of Jasper's scowling countenance staring back at them or his hand holding hers.
And just like that, one day everything fell apart.
The blonde man came tearing up to their room, his eyes glassy and red. His breath smelt of cheap whiskey and desperation. Before Jasper could come to her rescue, he'd pushed Jasper away with such force that he fell down on the floor and split open his head.
"Where are the photographs, flower?"
"I don't know," she repeated the answer she'd given him the first thousand times he'd asked the same question.
"You don't?" He tore open her shirt as easily as if she were wearing a garment made of tissue paper. Jasper lunged at the man despite the fact that blood poured from his wound into his eyes.
"Stay away from Bella," Jasper grunted as his fist made contact with the man's nose. The sick crunching sound echoed in the dim room but the man didn't stop.
"Tell me where the photographs are," the blonde man threatened. "Or else…"
She didn't know how, but suddenly the man had Jasper by his throat, a slick knife pressed against his jugular. She kept screaming and denying the knowledge about the photographs but the man didn't believe her.
The knife opened Jasper's carotid artery and blood drops bloomed like flowers on his skin.
"I love you, Bella…"
~KMHM~
Edward hurried along the corridor behind Ms. Cope, wanting to reach Bella's room as soon as he could.
He'd got her desperate call while he'd been returning to his uptown flat after a charity dinner.
"We tried to keep her down without using force, but she'd turned too violent and we had to restrain her for her own safety, Dr. Cullen," Ms. Cope remarked.
His heart gave a painful pang.
His Bella rendered helpless…
His Bella?
When Ms. Cope swiped her card and opened the door, he hadn't expected Bella to look so black and blue.
Ms. Cope was quick to provide an explanation before he could even formulate his question. "Those marks have been made by her own hand, Dr. Cullen. By the time we entered her room, she was trying to choke herself to death. Again."
"I would like to be alone with her, Ms. Cope."
"But, Dr. Cullen—"
"Now, Ms. Cope," he barked in desperation and she was out of the door before he'd turned around to where Bella lay.
She was staring at the ceiling, unblinking and still, as if she could find life lessons by doing so.
"Bella?" He sat on the narrow bed and slowly worked out the restraints that bound her to her bed. "What happened?"
She didn't give any sign that she was listening, but if she was, maybe she wasn't willing to answer.
He worked in silence till her hands and feet were free and she could move if she wished.
"Bella?" he tried again. "What happened, love?"
The endearment slipped past his lips without any thought.
"He's dead." The tears dropped silently on the pillow from her eyes. "Jasper's dead…"
"Bella…"
"I love you." It was a whispered confession but it was not for him, would never be for him.
She moved like lightening and within seconds her fist had smashed through the glass of her window.
"Bella," he called desperately, but she was too far gone to listen.
She was lost in her madness and she didn't care.
She brought down the shard of glass she held and pushed it with all her might through her abdomen.
"I love you," she said as the sharp glass parted the skin and muscles like a knife cutting through butter.
He was a frozen spectator of this garish play he couldn't understand.
Her beautiful features were serene as she took breath after breath, each more difficult than the last.
"I love you, Bella." He sank where he stood like a tree felled by the gales of the north.
"I love you, Jasper." Her last words along with her last breath slipped past her lips like a serene prayer, and she was dead.
~KMHM~
I could've written our story,
If only I knew when to start,
I wanted to give you the world
But you left me with your broken heart…
Edward Cullen laid the rose beneath the shiny obsidian headstone, the curly edges of her name touching the dates of her birth and death.
Love had crept upon him in the guise of one crazy girl who'd lived with a long dead boy in her head. He hadn't even understood it properly, hadn't even learned to live with it and just as suddenly as it had come, the love had gone, leaving him cold and petrified from inside.
Aro had got his wish without even doing anything.
All Edward was left with was a heart broken beyond saving, and her sketches of him that the Facility had sent along with her meager belongings.
"I-I lo-" he choked on his words.
In the end, he walked away without saying the words.
Wherever she was, she knew how much he loved her…
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