Salvation
Written by: Snow Illusion
Summary: A collection of vignettes taken from our favorite confederate general turned vampire's perspective.
Stage 1
Salvation
*
Strong marble arms were encircling my midsection, but I couldn't feel them. A low voice was billowing harsh syllables to restrain myself, but I couldn't hear it.
Everything was her.
Every strained, haggard breath I took was intoxicating, excruciating. Without my own permission, my body started to seizure against the brute dragging me away from the one thing that would satisfy my thirst for the first time in decades. One arm jerked with slender, ice-cold fingers outstretched and flew towards the gradually widening open space that separated me and the object of my morbid desires. The arm was whipped back into place in less than a millisecond, pinned securely against my ribs, which rose in time with my quickening breaths. My entire body ached for her.
My body fell effortlessly into a crouch; venom coated my tongue as my hungry, raged body recognized the signs of an incoming meal. My jaw immediately fell open, exposing my greatest weapon, a row of shiny, perfect white teeth that could cut through steel if I ever intended them to do so.
"Get him out of here!" ordered the tight, angered voice of one of my brothers, but the words no longer connected nor made any sense. It was all just noise. Everything was just noise and light and desperate need. The need to feel her warm neck against my lips, her pulsing, hot blood splattering against the pearl porcelain of my teeth. True pleasure.
I growled instinctively (everything was rooted in my instincts now) and felt the statuesque arms tighten. I would break his neck open as well if I had to. I had the training. I had taken down others stronger and younger, and Emmett's grip was nothing compared to the red glare of Maria.
My cold, black, and thirsty eyes twitched from side to side and my vision swam with the concerned faces of my family. Mostly the concern was for the girlBELLA who had been the main cause of this fiasco. A harmless trip. A little blood. And in a split instant I had regressed into a Jasper I had been trying to desperately to grow out of, a Jasper that's only mission in his immortal life was to feed on as many pathetic humans as possible, the Jasper that was quite literally, a heartless killer.
A Jasper I didn't want to be.
The girlBELLA had no idea what she had inspired with her innocent accident. With all of the strength I could muster, I forced my eyes towards the girlBELLABELLABELLA.
I stopped breathing.
Edward was hovering over herBELLA, a fear so deep in his topaz eyes I thought I could see into his very soul, and only more pain and fear lived there. A sweep of dark, brunette hair is what lied at the end of his gaze. A pale face, a deep inset of chocolate brown eyes. She was apologizing.
Her pink lips were moving soundlessly, but I could see the words they formed. Jasper.
Jasper. What about Jasper?
What about me?
My golden eyebrows knitted in confusion. She was worried…about me? When her own frail life was at stake? Didn't she know…didn't she have any idea if Emmett hadn't clawed my shoulders, pushed me with the same amount of force that a jet engine requires to take off, at the exact precise moment that he did, she would have become another one of my countless victims?
The girlBELLA turned again swiftly towards me but Edward held her in place. Carlisle was tending to her injuries. A sickening blow from Emmett aimed straight for my sternum forced my undead body to take another soaked breath.
Bad move.
The renewed heavenly scent of the girlBELLABELLABELLA ignited the fire. But my hunger was not the only thing kicked into high gear.
Fear seared through every inch of my pale skin, every tendon of my concrete hard muscles and every fiber of bone that had been set in the same place for more than a hundred years. It was completely overpowering. My flailing legs finally gave out from under me and I slumped in Emmett's grasp, my eyes tightening with unshed tears, my entire body twitching with the omnipresent terror that was radiating from every direction. It was coming from me, from everyone, and from no one at the exact same time. I curled my fists and bent my head into my chest, resisting the urge to run away, run away so far and so fast that even the idea of this panic would never surface again.
I growled again, this time in agony. I shut my eyes with a snap.
Concentrate. I just had to concentrate. After a few moments it was obvious the fear was coming from the girlBELLA, but it was not concern over her own life that was sparking the alarm, it was the imagined outcome of this mess she had created. Her life without us. Without Edward.
And without me.
She believed because of my outrage, we would all leave her. And she would be alone again, without the Cullens. Without Edward.
And without me…
"Jasper, c'mon!" Emmett grunted in clear struggle as he finally managed to detach my quivering, uncontrollable self from the scene of the crime. We were in the kitchen. Only one room away, but the farthest Emmett could take me, and none of the others wanted to take over once he was depleted. They wanted to believe I could control it, that I could overcome the thirst. They wanted to believe that there was still something good in me.
I wanted to believe there was still something good in me.
But it was so hard, it was so hard knowing that the girlBELLA was lying helplessly only a few feet away, slowing draining herself of elixir, ambrosia, the drink of the Gods that I had resisted for far too long.
Without even a first thought I was bolting again and Emmett's bear of a frame tackled me into a wall. Chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling and made sickening cracks as they exploded on tile. Multiple spidery cracks festered from the point our two stone bodies had made contact. Emmett was heaving now as he pressed my flinging extremities harder into the wall Esme had spent years renovating.
HERHERHERHERHERBELLAHERHERBELLAHERBELLABELLABELLAHERHERHERHER.
A second wave of sharp fear hit me again and I screamed. It was a rotten, dry sound that continued on long after the breath had died within me. I NEEDED HERBELLA. I NEEDED HER –
"BELLA!" my voice cracked, loud and ragged. Soaked with desperation and disappointment. The others in the room tore their attention away from said girl and focused instead, on me. The bad vampire. I squeezed my eyes shut again as harsher dread rolled in waves off of my skin. "HER NAME IS BELLA!" I continued unstoppably with my own brigade. I would never stop saying it if I had to. I knew the moment I forgot she had a name; I would forget she was real. That she was someone who meant a lot to me. That she meant a lot to Edward and to this entire family. "HER NAME IS BELLA, HER NAME IS BELLA, HER NAME IS BELLA," I repeated over and over again. The phrase screamed itself in my mind as the words themselves left my venomous mouth and echoed through the entire foyer. Emmett drove his bulky shoulder into my chest and I hissed. I couldn't stop. "HER NAME IS BELLA AND SHE IS WITH EDWARD! SHE IS MY FAMILY! I WILL NOT HURT MY FAMILY!" The last sentence was choked. I began to shake. But not with hunger. With shame. I was so ashamed of myself. Her name is Bella, and I loved her.
There was another hand. This hand was tiny, small, and delicate. I had felt the caress of this hand so many times. It meant hope. It meant love. It meant my own completion, my own soul's (if I had a soul at this point) other half. Slender palms cupped my cheeks. I shuddered and my eyes opened with a click. They met hers.
"No you will not," she answered my own mantra with a knowing smile. The corner of her lips was curled upward. Her golden eyes crinkled slightly at the edges with bliss. The pure love burning from her was the only thing that could dilute my shame and Bella's fear.
"I will not hurt my family," I repeated with a gasp, my black eyes locked with her topaz. She shook her head, her inky black hair ruffling ever so slightly with each movement, her warm and complete touch never leaving my face. Emmett finally relaxed and I fell.
I fell into her arms and she caught me. I burrowed my forehead into her beautiful, perfect exposed collarbone. I inhaled quickly, trying to saturate myself in her scent as much as inhumanly possible. She was the only one who could stop me; it was foolish for Emmett to even try. He was just buying time until Alice could find her way to me. And she always found her way.
"Everything will be okay. You have done nothing wrong," she sang softly as her velvet fingers stroked tendrils of my blonde hair. Her voice was the perfect melody. Her voice was an angelic harp. Her voice was my salvation.
My breathing was staggering, but slowly returning to what we consider normal. My unbreakable grip only constricted excessively with each passing second, but I had no worry that I would hurt Alice. I had held her in my worst of times, and not only could she handle it, she welcomed the fact that she was the only one who offered relief.
As the venom in my mouth began to sink into my tongue, I realized I was slowly returning from the brink of insanity. My first obligation was to calm down Bella.
I counteracted the fear with one thought. The tension in both rooms lowered considerably, I even felt my own shoulders sag, my facial muscles relax, and my arms loosen. Calm. I was calm.
And now was Bella, although I could tell she was fighting.
Calm. Calm was beautiful. Calm was control.
And calm was Alice.
I kissed her harshly, not even taking into account that our family was here. Alice and I usually restrained ourselves when we were in the company of others, neither of us felt the need to declare our love physically every moment, nor become an annoying presence like Rosalie and Emmett. But I needed her now. I needed her familiar lips; I needed to feel her body moving under mine. I needed her more than I needed blood.
She returned the kiss with equal ferocity and that only made me want her more. She pulled away however and her hands returned to my cheeks. Her gaze was hard and narrowed. I understood now, what she needed.
"Her name is Bella. She is with Edward. She is my family. I will not hurt my family," I repeated like a child drilling a learned lesson to a parent or teacher. My voice was barely audible, even to a room full of vampires. We were both still.
In the world, it was only she and I that existed. There was no blood, no vampires or humans, no Earth on which to live on. Only the two of us, rooted in this spot, for all eternity. And there was nothing else that I had ever needed or wanted more.