Innocent Killer
It's always Jasper that they keep an eye on. And I'm just as guilty as the rest of the family. But in reality, maybe it was me that we needed to watch: because when I snapped, I snapped badly. Maybe the worst mistake any of us have ever done.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: And to reassure you all, there will be a sequel to this. As a timeline reference, though, this is two moves before Forks (as in they'll live in one more place before Forks).
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the Twilight characters or universe.
*~*~*~*~*~oOo~*~*~*~*~*
Great Falls, MT (2001)
It was still overcast right now, but the sun would be coming out in about an hour and a half, and that would stay for the remainder of the day. And we wouldn't be finished here for another two hours at least. More, if that Alex kid decided to make a run for a smoke. Less, mind you, if those drunk guys outside smashed a few windows.
The timing and the amount of people still on school property meant that getting to my car from the school would be extremely difficult. Maybe if I called Emmett and told him to 'steal' my car… No, maybe not. I was driving Rosalie's car, and she does love that BMW. Emmett drives everything like he drives his Jeep: recklessly. He's not allowed in the driver's seat of Rosalie's BMW.
She might let Jasper steal her car… No. Jasper wouldn't do that. And Edward was out of the question: Rosalie had sabotaged the engine on his Aston Martin a couple days ago. He'd wrap her BMW around a tree in retaliation.
Rosalie wouldn't steal her own car, and besides, she was one of us who needed to go on this hunt tonight the most. This weekend really wasn't about the hunting – it was more about letting all of us just be ourselves, without the scrutiny of human minds. It was really more of an apology trip for Carlisle to Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper and I: an apology for making us deny our most necessary relationships.
I fingered the cell phone in my pocket, contemplating a run to the washroom to call Carlisle and have him spring me. Fake a family emergency.
"Miss Cullen, maybe if you paid attention to your assignments, you could go home sooner," the teacher (I'd actually neglected to learn this one's name) called pointedly.
Detention was a new concept for us. Usually we were referred to as the 'best-behaved teenagers' our schools had ever seen. This time around, with the change in routine, we were getting into a lot more trouble. Short tempers, mostly. I'd never actually realized how short a fuse Emmett has when he's not allowed to be with Rosalie. Rosalie and Jasper have tempers, we all know that. But at least they were playing the same age, they could keep an eye on each other. Emmett and I were the worst for it: we were on our own. Edward, on the other hand, was the picture of perfection at his school (after, of course, being expelled from our school on the first day for punching out one of the students – he told us all that we didn't want to know what the poor kid had been thinking about me).
It was actually very distressing for me, not being able to physically see or touch Jasper until we'd reached Emmett's aptly-named 'safety line'. Which, unfortunately, was at the garage door of our house. Of course, I could keep a mental eye on him through the day, but it wasn't the same as having the freedom to come deliver a congratulatory kiss after a particularly difficult class for having resisted his thirst. It wasn't the same as being able to complain of 'being sick' and steal him away for an afternoon of relative solitude.
And I hadn't seen him all day today. He had gone to school early with Rosalie for a term project in History (ironically, on the Civil War – Emmett had gotten a good laugh out of that one) with two other classmates, and the juniors had been gone all day from school on an outing to some sort of career symposium. He had been texting me throughout the day, but his self-control was wavering. He was thirsty. We were all thirsty, and the promise of three full days alone had been tormenting him, taunting him with how close and yet so far 6 PM was.
Sighing, I turned my attention back to the essay in front of me. The drunk kids outside were going to break a few windows in the administration office. We wouldn't be here too much longer.
Carefully, I slid out my phone from my pocket, flipping it open with one hand, the other writing something about the apathy of present society for my social studies paper. Faster than anybody in the room could see or hear, I quickly tapped out a message to Jasper.
I'll be there soon. Probably no more than an hour, Jazz. Kids are about to vandalize school property.
In the distance, I heard the sounds of the windows breaking and the boys' raucous laughter. Within seconds, the security alarms had begun to blare, piercing my sensitive ears. It was one of the pitfalls of playing human: alarms were usually way too loud for our hearing to take for long. That was why Edward and I usually kept tabs on when our schools were scheduling alarm tests and fire drills.
In the chaos that followed, the teacher didn't notice my phone beginning to beep. As I opened it again, I read Jasper's return message with a smile:
Hope you didn't encourage that sort of criminal activity, Lissy… Call Carlisle when you're out. I want my three days.
Rolling my eyes slightly, I sent a message back and packed up my things.
I promise I will make it worth the wait. See you soon.
I had parked my car around the back in the far lot, away from where most students parked – partly in anticipation of the good weather later this afternoon, partly because Rosalie would burn me at the stake if something happened to her car.
Curious as to what the rest of the family had done to pass the time in the four hours that I'd managed to delay our departure with detention, I searched through the visions.
Emmett and Rosalie had had enough of waiting for me to get out of detention and Carlisle to get off work. They'd decided to leave on their hunt about an hour ago, and were busy making the most of it.
Electing not to watch any more of their activities, because it just made me wish I'd simply held my tongue in government class – if not for that, I could be doing the exact same thing with Jasper right now – I turned my attention to Carlisle. Carlisle was still working, the emergency room thrown into a frenzy because of a five-car pileup during the afternoon commute. He was contemplating staying later, sending Edward and Esme on ahead when I arrived.
Watching Carlisle reminded me that I needed to call the hospital and warn him that I was on my way.
Quickly, I dialed his office, not surprised when somebody picked up (and it wasn't him).
"Dr Cullen's office," came Edward's voice over the line.
"Hey, Edward," I said cheerfully, looking at the slowly clearing clouds above me. I'd have to pull up the top of the convertible. Were Rosalie's windows tinted? I couldn't remember. "Listen, I'm on my way to the hospital now. Tell Jasper to meet me at the front doors. You might want to call Esme and just go on without Carlisle – there's a five-car pileup in the ER. Actually, tell Jasper to avoid passing by the ER…"
"Tell him yourself," Edward interrupted me, and there was a shuffle of the phone being passed over.
"Hey, Alice," Jasper said, a distinct tone of pleasure in his voice. "Are you out already?"
"I told you, Jazz, kids are busy vandalizing school property," I laughed, looking ahead to disarm the car alarm.
There was no red M3 BMW convertible in the parking lot.
Despite myself, I swore. Loudly and colourfully. I picked up all sorts of bad habits from my beloved and my older brother. "Rosalie's going to burn me at the stake."
"What?" Jasper asked immediately, concern in his voice.
"Somebody stole her car."
"Stole as in –" I heard Edward asking in the background, the sounds of keys rattling already evident nearby.
"Tell Edward as in some teenage mutant miscreant jacked her BMW!" I exclaimed. "And probably has totaled it by now –"
"Calm down, Lissy. In the end, it's just a car, Rosalie'll buy another one. I'm on my way in Edward's car to pick you up now, all right? I'll be there in about forty-five minutes. Just… stay inside until I get there in case the sun decides to make an appearance, okay?"
"All right, all right," I grumbled at him as I hung up and turned to head back inside.
I saw their intentions in a flash just a split-second before they came around the corner.
"Hey, look who it is, guys!" one called with the loud voice of a definite drunk. "Our pretty little friend… no brothers here to take an unmerited swing at Tyson this time."
One, two, three, four… oh, God, were there seriously ten of them coming towards me, closing all avenues of escape? The scent of their human blood drifting into my breath, slowly nibbling at my self-control? Was the sun seriously starting to come towards the end of the cloudbank?
"You know, I've never been able to breathe right since he broke my nose," Edward's outraged victim said with a growl.
'Listen,' I felt like telling him, 'my husband finds out you and your little buddies are trying to hit on me, he'll break more than your nose. He was a soldier, you know, he has no problem with killing. Oh, yeah, and he's a vampire who hasn't fed in weeks, so he's a little short-tempered…'
Why did Carlisle have to work across the city? Don't think about the blood. Don't think about the unbearable burn. You made it this far today, don't break concentration now…
Some businessman in a car as equally ostentatious as Rosalie's now-stolen convertible cut Jasper off in traffic, taking the only opening he could see in the near future as he continued talking on his cell. Frustrated, Jasper blared his horn at the man, flipping him the finger angrily.
I quickened my pace slightly, maybe moving just a little faster than a human girl ought to have been able to, hoping to get to the back doors of the school before the school's custodian locked them and left for the night.
He paused at the broken windows, shaking his white head in disgust. "Kids…" he muttered, going towards the back doors. Outside, he could see only a few of the boys looking at each other grinning. "Go home, you delinquents!" he howled, locking the doors securely.
"Go home, you delinquents!" I heard him shout.
"Not as talkative without a brother there to punch people, is she?" another boy commented.
Oh, if you only knew, you silly little human boy. You with your warm, wet, gushing blood… if you only knew, stupid, inconsequential human boy, that if I opened my mouth right now, you and all your little friends would be dead…
"Geez, you know, I wonder if she even talks at all without a brother there to punch people," a third said, stepping forward and reaching for my arm.
Instinctively, still focusing on not attacking the poor defenseless human, I jerked back, saying through clenched teeth, "Don't touch me."
"Ooooh, she does speak!"
"Aaron, I don't know, her brothers are pretty damn big," one boy said, a note of uncertainty in his voice. "Have you seen the one in the senior class? Guy's the fricking Hulk!"
"And the other one looks like he could hold his own in a fight, but neither of them are here, are they?" the first said in a mocking tone. "Come on, baby, what do you say we go somewhere a little more private?"
"Dude, nowhere's private with you around," another scoffed, and the insulted party went flying at him, smashing his fist into the guy's face…
And the second his blood started flowing, I lost my fragile hold on my self-control. Before I'd even fully realized what I was doing, I had lunged for the injured boy, desperate to get the pulsing, warm liquid into my body, to stop my terrible burning. Everything else was collateral damage.
And it was ecstasy. God, how had I ever thought that animal blood would be enough? How had I gone eighty years without once tasting this?
I had drained four of them without once stopping before I realized that the thirst wasn't satisfied. And I didn't care how many more of these useless, fragile humans had to die for my thirst.
*~*~*~*~*
It seemed like eternity had passed when my feeding was interrupted by somebody strong grabbing my arm and yanking me away from the mutilated body.
"No!" I snarled, struggling against the tight grip.
"Alice, enough!" he ordered sternly, and I stopped, finally recognizing the voice behind me. Turning around, I looked at his eyes, darkened with thirst, but still with a hint of honey in them. They were scared, horrified, sympathetic. His grip shook slightly, and his blond hair was falling down around his face.
Carlisle. My father in all the ways which counted in this world of ours.
"Enough, Alice," he repeated, a little softer. And it was like me, who I was, came rushing back from my crazed state of dissociation. Like I had woken up after a really bad nightmare, only to realize that the nightmare was real.
Oh God, what had I done?
"Oh my God, Alice…" Edward's stunned voice came from above me.
"Oh, God…" I whispered, turning around to look at the destruction I'd wreaked on those boys.
"Edward, call Emmett and Rosalie," Carlisle said, his voice amazingly calm despite the situation at hand. "I'll call Esme. Jasper –"
He didn't even have to finish his sentence before Jasper had materialized at my side, lifting me easily up into his arms. Still stunned speechless, I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my face into it. His muscles were tense, probably from the strain it was taking to stop himself from drinking the blood that was still spilling on the pavement.
"We'll meet you in Denali," he told Carlisle quietly. "Come on, Lissy. Let's get you out of here."
He deposited me lightly on the passenger side of Edward's car, tearing out of there as fast as he could. "Lissy, what happened back there?" he asked softly, reaching for my hand.
"I should've just kept my mouth shut," I whispered, shaking my head. "I should've just kept my mouth shut, and none of this would've happened…"
"Alice," he repeated, a little more urgently.
"Jasper, tell me that didn't actually happen," I pleaded suddenly, gripping his hand tightly. "It's just… it's just another bad vision. I didn't really –"
Jasper was silent, rubbing his thumb lightly over my knuckles. "I'm sorry, baby," he finally said quietly. "What happened?"
"I…" I stopped again, the human instinct to gag wanting to surface. "They… God, Jazz, I want it out of me!" I nearly shrieked. "All of it, I want it gone…"
"I'm sorry, Lissy," he repeated.
"Oh, Jasper, I really did kill ten boys, didn't I?" I whispered, the horror taking over as my main emotion again. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus on the image of Carlisle and Edward back at the school, rapidly gathering together the mutilated bodies, dousing their cars and the remains with the leftover alcohol. The more I watched, the greater my anxiety became. Nobody, absolutely nobody – not Emmett, not Jasper – had ever put the family in so much disarray and danger as I just had, and who was busy cleaning up my mess? Carlisle and Edward, putting themselves at risk of exposure and death – the wind was picking up, and Carlisle was cautiously setting fire to the entire site, risking the winds blowing the flames in his direction.
"Alice, stop," Jasper said, and for the first time, I realized how tense his voice was. "I can't concentrate on the road." Because he was too busy trying to work his way out of the mire of my emotional trauma. Trying to calm himself and trying to keep me from going into absolute hysterics. "Just… try not to think about it for a while, okay? At least until we reach state lines?"
I nodded without another word and tried to think of other things. What else could I think about?
Denali. We were going to Tanya and the rest of the family. We hadn't really met the Denalis yet. Just heard about them in passing from Carlisle, and from the others. The last time that they'd come to see the Cullens, it had been about a year before Jasper and I had come to the family. It would be nice to finally meet the extended family.
I could feel Jasper's muscles slowly relax in his hand as I forced my thoughts to stay on wondering what the Denalis were like.
*~*~*~*~*
"Okay, Lissy," Jasper finally said, pulling off the road into a dark, secluded mountain road. "Come with me." Taking my hand, he pulled me into the backseat and nestled my body against his securely. "Tell me all about it," he whispered. "What happened?"
"No," I whispered. "No more…"
"Lissy, I need to know," he murmured into my ear.
"No, you don't. I don't want you to know…"
Suddenly, he pulled me beneath him on the seat, pinning me between his arms as he looked me straight in the eyes, his charcoal black eyes boring into my bright crimson eyes. "Alice Whitlock, if you think that I love you any less because of what happened…" he growled, kissing me.
I flinched at the sound of my name. Very rarely since we'd joined the Cullens had we used our true names. I'd almost venture to say that we'd never once used them. And yet hearing it come from his perfect mouth, reminding me that we were together in this, that the first name I could remember having was his, it was almost more than I could bear.
I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand to have him, so strong and perfect and pure, be defiled by my actions, by my very presence. To be destroyed with me when the Volturi heard about the mass murder I'd just committed…
His lips made their way down my throat as he whispered, "And don't even think for a second about leaving. Because I'll just follow you."
"Jazz, please…" I begged as he undid the buttons on my shirt. "You don't understand…"
"Oh, I understand, baby," he countered. "Do you think I haven't felt all that before? That I don't think exactly the same things every time that I mess up?"
"You don't mess up like this," I whispered, moaning as his kisses continued to trail down my front. "This is bad."
He paused, thinking over his response. "Yes," he finally replied. "This is bad. But it doesn't change a thing, Lissy."
