2 Years Later
Somewhere in the Denali area, Alaska
I proceeded quietly, my eyes locked on the wolf in front of me. He might have been a noble creature, but to me, he was just a container for the fluid I craved. I coiled, preparing to spring.
The wind changed direction. A new scent washed over me, pure, delicious…there was a hiker. A man, all alone, lost in the woods. In a split second, I was up, the wolf forgotten. As I drew closer, the new scent strengthened. A few hundred yards more. I could sense his confusion behind my own exhilaration. His pumping vessels were like music to my ears, the sweet liquid within them nectar to my burning throat—
Something slammed into me from the right, knocking me off course into a stream with a sound like a thundercrack. I tried to fight back, but my agressor had me pinned.
"Have you given up?" he growled. "Is this it? Are you going to abandon all the progress you've made?"
The scent was fading. The man had heard our clash and was running fairly quickly in the other direction. My awareness slowly returned, and I realized that Edward was sitting on top of me. But part of my mind still followed the hiker, wondering how long Edward would keep me here…
He punched me. It did no damage, of course, but it focused more of my attention on him. "Tanya warned me that you were having trouble, but this…Jasper, do you have any idea how close you were to breaking your fast? It's harder to go back afterwards. Trust me."
I know. It's just…
"You're losing your focus. You don't know why you should bother anymore."
I want to try. I don't want to be a monster again. But away from from you and Carlisle…it's different. It's easier to let go. To give in.
"That's it," said Edward. "You're coming home. Now."
I was so surprised I spoke out loud. "What? No!" The tiny girl…Mary Alice Brandon. She wasn't gone yet. I would kill her next time. I knew it.
"If I could resist Bella, you can resist Alice."
You have more experience than I do.
"Not at that point, I didn't," he said. "It hadn't been that long since my teenage rebellion years. I'd been a vampire for less than two decades. Actually, I probably had less resistance than you."
That doesn't mean that I can do it. You've always been stronger than me.
"In terms of this, maybe you're right. But if you give yourself a good enough reason, you will be strong enough."
I doubted it.
He scowled at me. "We'd better hurry back. The new school year starts in less than twenty-four hours." He smiled crookedly. "Race you back to Tanya's?"
Fine. But could you please get off of me first?
He laughed loudly and was off.
"Cheater," I muttered, and followed after him.
Forks, Washington
"Mike!" I shouted up the stairs. "Hurry up! We're gonna be late!"
"Hold on a second! I'm almost done!" he yelled back from the bathroom. He took more time doing his hair than I did. Then again, his hair was longer than mine. Sometimes, times like these, in fact, I was tempted to squash all of his perfectly gelled spikes. But then he'd probably just have to redo them and we'd be even later.
"Finally," I moaned as he jumped down the last two stairs and into the front hall.
"Just get in the car," he said. I followed him out to the Suburban, muttering about divas.
"There's nothing wrong with wanting my hair to look good," he said as he started the car.
"Sure, if it's Tyler Crowley you're trying to impress. Anything you've been meaning to tell me, cuz?"
"Normal girls like it when guys look neat. Anything you want to tell me?"
I rolled my eyes. "Don't be stupid. Besides, say you do get a girl: what is making out going to do to your hair?"
He was silent for a moment, pondering the wonderfully impossible idea of a girl wanting to make out with him. "If that's the situation, I don't really think I'd mind much."
"Got your eye on anyone in particular? Other than Bella Swan." Mike blushed. He'd had had a crush on her for two years, but he was too scared to approach her. Scared of Edward Cullen, that is. The brave few who had approached any of the Cullens tended to have accidents. An embarassing secret leaked, a goofy trip in gym…It hadn't taken long for the students at Forks High to give the Cullens a wide berth.
"Like I'd tell you, Little Miss Gossip Queen."
"I don't spread gossip, I just like to know it!"
"You always seem to know about stuff before it happens, though."
"Female intuition," I joked, but it was true. In addition to prophetic dreams, I developed a knack for knowing when people were going to get together, break up, or make up. I just got these feelings about certain things, and then all of a sudden they were happening.
Thinking about my "visions," I remembered what I had dreamed about last night. It was amazing I had forgotten it at all. Something must have shown on my face, because Mike asked, "What's wrong? See something bad in my future? Does Jessica Stanley like me, or something?"
"D'you think Jasper Hale might be coming back this year from Alaska?" I asked quietly. The official story was that Jasper had trouble adjusting to Forks, and returned to their old home in Alaska, where they had family who could take him.
"What? Why? Come on, Al. What are the chances? Why would he come back for senior year? He's probably got friends in Alaska now. Even if he did come back, he's not going to bother you." There was an edge of very un-Mike-like menace in his voice that would have been comical in another situation. Mike was the only one who still cared about what happened on my first day of school.
But his return was exactly what my dream last night seemed to foretell. Jasper was there, his face floating in front of my eyes. The only difference was that his eyes were a light butterscotch, instead of coal black.
Mike parked, and we walked quickly to English, the only class we had together this year other than gym. Luckily, my best girl friend Samantha was in the rest of my classes. We'd become really close once I'd worked up the courage to talk to someone outside of Mike's crew, which she was now sort of in.
We made it to English just before the late bell rang. It only took a moment to see that among the pairs of desks, there were only two seats open: one next to Tyler, who waved eagerly at Mike, and one next to Edward Cullen. I immediately headed for Cullen where he sat in the back; I liked Tyler, but he was ridiculously annoying. I'd rather sit next to a snob for a period than him. At least Cullen was goodlooking. I'd just hijack the car tomorrow and get here on time, Mike or no Mike.
Mr. Lane stood up. "Welcome to English 11. Do you like your seats?" There was an incoherent murmer from the class.
Uh-oh.
"Good," said Mr. Lane, "because they aren't changing until June, when you walk out that door and never darken it again."
Shit. So there I was, stuck sitting next to Edward Cullen for the next ten months. Whatever. He probably wouldn't even deign to speak to me.
"Hi," he said. I thought stupidly for a second that he was trying to prove me wrong.
"Hi," I said automatically. I wasn't sure what the standard was for talking to the extremely sexy anti-social adopted brother of a kid who had mysteriously disappeared after growling at me for no apparent reason.
As I thought this, he smiled and laughed very quietly. "Something funny?" I asked without thinking. It came out with a lot of attitude. I was sort of nervous, sitting next to him (did I mention how hot he was?), and that made me defensive.
"Just a funny thought," he said, and smiled even wider.
Now I was starting to get ticked. Forks was lucky that the Cullens were anti-social. He was pretty annoying. "What is your problem?"
"Problem?" he said innocently. "What do you mean?"
"You…I was just…and you…" What I wanted to say was, You think my thoughts are funny, and that's pretty annoying, but when it tried to come out of my mouth, my tongue realized how stupid it sounded and decided to block out the embarrassing parts. Thank God I could censor something in this conversation... "Never mind," I said. Two minutes in, and I was already prepared to never speak to him again.
"I'm sorry, am I annoying you?" he asked.
"Stop doing that!" Too loud. Lee and Eric, in the seats in front of us, turned and looked. Mr. Lane hadn't noticed, though.
"What?" asked Cullen.
"You're…it's like you know what I'm thinking!" There. I said it. And it didn't really sound crazy or stupid. It's not like I had outrightly accused him of mind-reading.
He shrugged. "I'm just very good at reading people. Most people, anyway," he said, almost to himself, and smiled. Was he on happy pills or something? He grinned again.
"Okay, fine. Whatever." I didn't really care anyway. If we could just get through the school year without interacting more than necessary, I'd be fine. It's not like English is a very partner-interactive subject anyway.
"Look, I'm really sorry if I'm bugging you," he said. God, couldn't this guy just take a hint? Maybe he was just too used to girls falling all over him. For good reason.
"It's fine," I insisted.
"Are you sure?" he asked with concern. "I mean, I really don't want this to be a struggle for either of us. And I feel bad about…well, you know what I mean."
I knew what he meant. What I didn't know is why he would bring it up.
"The past is the past." Even the weird, freaky past. I turned away from him and listened to Mr. Lane go over the class syllabus. I hated the first day of school spiel. It was always the same thing: classroom rules, syllabus, expectations. Nothing new. I began to zone out. I really should have slept more last night…
The cafeteria floor covered in blood… My dad, crying…a smooth coffin being lowered into a grave…
"Alice!" hissed Edward.
"What?" I said groggily. The class was staring at me. Mr. Lane glared down at me. "Please read bullet number three under 'Grading System,' please," he said. I looked down quickly and muttered the two sentences about class participation. Oh, irony. Mr. Lane gave me another glare, then moved on to another lethargic victim.
Edward Cullen was staring at me in shock and horror. Could he have seen it? No, that was silly. Mind reading? Come on!
But you see the future. Why not a mind-reader?
I shook my head a little, trying futilely to dislodge the thought. That wasn't the furture. It couldn't be. Because all of those scenes seemed to revolve around one thing, and I couldn't bear to think about it.
Cullen interrupted Katie, Mr. Lane's latest reader, midsentence. "May I be excused?" he asked.
"Take the pass," said Mr. Lane.
He didn't come back, and I was more than a little relieved. When the class let out, I practically ran to the door. I met up with Samantha outside Spanish, our next class. "Hey Sam! How was your first class of junior year?"
"I hate gym."
"So what else is new?"
The morning passed normally. Sam and I were groaning on our way to lunch from Biology. "Figures we'd have it right before we eat," she said.
"Maybe we'll both lose some weight this year!" I said. Not that either of us really needed it.
As we approached the cafeteria, my vision—no, dream, it was just a dream—came back to me. I began to feel apprehension building in the pit of my stomach.
I stepped into line with Sam, focusing on what food I was going to buy. My stomach was still turning (though not from Biology), so I just bought an apple and a water. I slid into a seat next to Mike, and Sam sat across from us. She immediately launched into a rant with Katie about how much she missed summer.
"Al? Are you okay?" asked Mike quietly.
"What? Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?" I said.
"You look kind of sick."
"I'm fine." I bit into the apple.
"I think you must have ESP or something," he said. "I saw Jasper Hale this morning."
ESP. Seeing the future. I half expected to turn around and see blood on the white tile behind me.
Mike continued. "I think he was leaving, though. He was walking to the parking lot with Edward Cullen. Guess he still hates Forks."
I turned my head slowly towards the table I hadn't even glanced at in almost two years. There were three people sitting at it. Bella Swan made eye contact, but I looked away immediately.
My friends were all staring at me, and I realized how spastic my outburst was. "I'm going outside," I said. "I don't feel like being in here right now." Mike and Sam got up with me. "I kind of want to be alone, okay?" I left the cafeteria. I still couldn't stop seeing the blood…
I walked over to the picnic tables near the parking lot. It was only drizzling. With a little less than an hour left of lunch, I pulled out the book I was currently reading. It was a thick romance, full of glamour and intrigue. Usually it would have distracted me easily, but I couldn't focus. I couldn't stop remembering. The father I hadn't seen in years, crying. The grave. My grave?
I closed my eyes, hoping to see only black behind my eyelids. The memories still lingered. I pulled out my iPod. Maybe music would help me. I sat with my head down on the table, eyes closed, and let the screaming guitar block out the world.