A warm sensation, caught between the smell of warm honey and the comfort of heated silk blankets pulsated into the small airline cabin, gushing from Jasper's core beneath my palm. This glow of energy for which I had no name for was one of the strangest I knew Jasper to produce. His heart, over a century silenced, conjured the faintest illusion of its own lost heartbeat to a steady rhythm. Edward said it was because he was so impassioned by me, or so he'd claimed when he first encountered such an atmosphere. It was harder to feel this strong of an awareness coming from him when the air was diluted by other vampires whose emotions, rather than a humans, were comparable to a wrecking ball versus a marble. His own joyous radiance continued to pulsate through my hand through his own true medium- me.
It was inevitable that the emotional status of the other passengers would affect our moment of subtle craving to be alone together, despite the minor affect their weaker, petty feeling's affect had on my Jasper. So hard was it for us to be this attuned to one another that we could never manage it near the house- resulting in an annual vacation to Jasper's old home in Texas; a ranch that had belonged to every generation of his family after his change until in the 70's, when they sold it off to move to a bigger community. Little had we known Esme had bought it (well, I had known, but why ruin the surprise for Jasper?) and had given it to us for our wedding after her own brand of touching-up.
Somewhere below on the second-class aircraft floor a toddler giggled- no older than three or four years at oldest, when an invisible impact pressed me against the seat, and forced my eyes shut- symptoms of a vision; some part of my conscious mind was a little annoyed by the interruption, but the vision took over.
Haunted, dawn in, dusk out, by my own personal hell- not something Edward could imagine when he probed my thoughts, not something Jasper could guess when he picked up on my emotional thrust into panic-mode. Wails of terror, begging reminded me of a video of the Jewish holocaust I'd been forced to watch in an 80's history class, before people began to think it was too graphic. My cell, hardly 4 by 7 foot, was pitch black, but I could still feel the drafts of cold air, the smell of charred hair from my 'treatments'. My mother…I later found out that she never hoped I would get better, that my visions would never stop; my grave was a silent memorial to that. It was obvious she never cared if I suffered the last of my days in a dark cell, shocked twice a week in the hopes I would lose my gift.
An echo of confusion rang in my ears- when ever did I have flashbacks of the past? I could only to my knowledge see what could happened, not what already passed. The vision sucked me back into full attention once again.
The cell melted away, the presence of walls gone yet the light had not yet returned. Humidity immediately weighed my hair down, my breath a cloud in the suddenly warm tropical air. A river gurgled sluggishly by, nearly a mile in length, and thick trees swayed lightly in a non-existent breeze.
My vision directed me to where, across the river, two frightened children huddled besides a tree. One, a boy, was incredibly short and lean, his features long and narrow; the other, a girl, bared a shocking resemblance to…me? Had I had a brother in my past too?
Both eyes were dark black, empty- thirsty. A taller woman with familiar brown hair grimaced in my direction, and turned away from me.
Lottie.
Lottie. Lottie. Why could I remember her now? Why, after decades of frantically wracking my brain for anything, anything that I could remember from my past, did she appear so clearly, as if not a day had passed since my days as a loonie? L
Lottie…one of the workers at the asylum. She had been one of the few that cared for me so kindly after my treatments and exile in the cold cell. The question continued to pound against my head as if it would explode with the pressure.
Why?
"Alice?" Jasper's voice, well coated over to hide the tenor of worry, brought me back to what was happening. "It's time to leave."
A/N: I didn't get my wish of 10 reviews, but I figured those who did review should get a special treat for their efforts. Is 5 reviews this time too much to ask for? Sorry for the chapter being so short.