Chapter 3: Immortal Soldier (Jasper Hale, 2007)
I knew that they had figured out that I'd left when I picked up the scent and sound of somebody chasing us.
I'd gotten enough of a head start that even Edward, the fastest in the coven, would need a few hours to catch up, so I paused in the branches of a tree, still cradling Alice, to figure out who it was. Upside of 57 years with them? I knew the best way to avoid any of them.
Listening to the sounds alone, I could tell that it wasn't any of the girls: the steps were too heavy. They weren't heavy enough to be Emmett. It was either Edward or Carlisle (probably more likely to be the former than the latter), or, more unlikely still, one of the wolves.
No, not the wolves. This was the sounds of human feet running through the forest at vampire speed. So Edward or Carlisle.
The scent wasn't always the best way to track who it was in this coven: we were so often in close quarters that I wouldn't doubt even I had some of Rosalie on me. If I were tracking by scent alone, I could've determined that the entire coven was coming.
But it was all about the quantity. Whose scents were most dominant. There would be traces of the others on the person coming after us, but the scents of the person themselves and their mate would be the more dominant.
Closing my eyes, I tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I couldn't stay long, because whoever it was, was closing the distance between us every second.
Carlisle.
With that determined, I started running again.
*~*~*
I had to stop nearly a day later, when Alice began writhing in pain in my arms. "No…" she moaned. "No, stop… I promise I won't tell any more…"
"Shh, Lissy, I'm here," I whispered, nestling her deep into my arms. "Shh. It'll all be over soon…" And it stung because I knew worse was coming. I didn't know what memory was causing her to do this right now, but I knew from that bastard James' account that shock treatments were coming. And the transformation – both excruciatingly painful experiences. She would be screaming in pain for days.
Oh, God, could I survive that? Just the moans of pain – and those would be only uncomfortable pains – were killing me to hear.
She moaned again, and I tightened my arms around her. "Shh, sweet Alice," I repeated helplessly. "It's not real anymore. You're safe."
"Stop, please…" she cried softly.
My head snapped up when I heard the rustling in the leaves of somebody approaching. Carlisle had finally caught up to us. "Go away," I called warningly. "You and your coven have caused enough damage."
"Jasper," Carlisle said slowly, pausing at the edge of the clearing. His emotions betrayed no hurt at my harsh statement, which confirmed my earlier theory: it wasn't Carlisle himself Edward was worried about, it was Esme. And what hurt Esme hurt Carlisle – now that was a concept I understood all too well. "Just listen to me for a minute, all right?" He approached another few steps, stopping when I tensed and hissed at him. "May I –"
"No!" I snarled, distracted again by Alice's pained cry. "Alice, sweet, it's okay…" I whispered to her, horrified when I saw bruising begin to form on her forehead. And not just light bruising, severe bruises. "Oh, God…" I groaned.
"Jasper, let me see," Carlisle repeated quietly. I shook my head again stubbornly. "Jasper."
She cried out in pain again, and as the cry subsided, I could hear her mumbling something semi-coherent under her breath. It sounded like it was Latin – a language that I, of course, hadn't gotten around to studying yet. And much I hated to admit it, right now Carlisle was my best bet for finding out what was plaguing my beloved.
"Fine," I muttered darkly. "Don't touch her," I warned as he approached.
Carlisle knelt down next to us, reaching out his hand to turn her face towards him.
"I said don't touch her," I snapped. Carlisle withdrew his hand immediately. "What's happening to her?" I asked softly, smoothing back her hair from her face to show him the bruising.
Carlisle frowned as Alice's mumbling became more and more coherent. "Jasper, I want to check something, but I'm going to need to touch her."
"Since when do you ask permission?" I muttered, though I nodded. Carlisle gently pushed up the sleeves of Alice's shirt, revealing similar bruising and scrapes on her wrists.
"Jasper, right now you've made it pretty clear that you don't want anybody near her. She's in pain, you're scared. I understand that." Turning his attention to her ankles, he brushed aside the hem of her skirt to show me the same bruising and scraping.
"What the hell is happening to her?" I demanded shakily.
"I think she's reliving an exorcism," Carlisle said quietly. "Restrained by the wrists and the ankles to stop the demon from using her body to fight back. If she was struggling against the restraints, that would cause these marks. The crucifix pressed into her head, hard…" He sighed, an ironic grimace on his face. "If anybody knows what an exorcism does to the human body, it's me."
"She's been begging for them to stop," I said softly, laying another kiss on her head. "Promising not to tell any more."
Carlisle sighed again. "One of the church's symptoms of possession is seeing visions of the future, or of things that the person couldn't possibly have knowledge of. Given how devout her parents were, I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised that they tried exorcism before abandoning her."
Alice was relaxing back into my arms again, the pain ceased for the moment.
"It looks as though she's okay for the moment," Carlisle said quietly.
"For the moment," I emphasized grimly. "Why are you here? I thought Edward would've made it clear that Alice and I are leaving. As if the departure wasn't clear enough."
"No, he did," Carlisle assured me. "No love lost between the two of you, if I might add. I just came to talk it over."
"Well, I'm not interested in talking, so you can go back."
"I promised Esme I wouldn't come back until I'd talked to you, and I'm a man of my word," Carlisle answered with a shrug. "So I'm going to talk, and if you want to listen, go ahead."
Grumbling under my breath, I readjusted Alice's position, watching her motionless face worriedly, senses tensed, ready for the next cry of pain she uttered.
"You know, I can see where your distrust is coming from," Carlisle said; I pointedly ignored him. What did he know about me, about my concern for Alice's happiness? "Maria created an immortal soldier. Your first instinct is fight and to protect what's yours. For a long time, all you had was fight. Correct me if I'm wrong, but somehow I don't think Maria ever left you the impression that you were anything important to her."
That stung, as true as it was. It was all about the conquest to Maria, not the occupation. She could win a city with any vampire at her side, so long as she had her army of newborns. I had been expendable, replaceable. Nothing important, nothing special.
"And then you met Alice," Carlisle continued, without once glancing at me; he could've been talking to the tree for all he cared. I continued watching Alice, and before I could stop it, a slight smile made its way onto my face as I remembered the stormy day I'd met her. "And she made you feel for the first time in a century. She made you feel like you were the only person who mattered."
Not entirely true, I argued in my mind. She'd already seen them in her visions before I'd even met her. The second she'd gotten me out of that diner and irrevocably wound around her little finger, she had gone on the hunt for them. Our entire relationship had been developed in the shadow of this goddamn coven of danger.
Carlisle must've seen the resentment that flickered across my face at that point – the internalized resentment Edward had lived with for 57 years. "Am I wrong?" he asked quietly.
It was hard to describe. In a way, he was right. In a way, he was terribly, terribly wrong.
"Jasper," he said, understanding beginning to creep into his voice. "Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but you've never had her to yourself, have you? Even before you came to us, we were always there. Always in the background."
"I don't hate her for it," I said defensively.
"No, of course not," Carlisle agreed. "You could never hate her. But you hate us. Because we took her away before you even had her." He paused – he had hit the nail on the head, and he knew it, as much pain as it caused him to say.
"I thought she was just being too idealistic," I said softly. "The way she talked about you, it was like she expected you to be perfect. I knew that there was a chance that you wouldn't even accept her."
"You were hoping we'd turn you away," Carlisle breathed. "Hurt her then instead of breaking her heart later."
"Oh, I knew you'd break her heart either way," I replied. "She had gotten so attached… there was no way around it."
"But then she'd be yours. Entirely yours."
And then it was as if his words, soft and accusing, had opened the floodgates to all my bottled-up resentment. "And then we got there, after two years of chasing you around the country…" I stopped, taking a breath to calm myself. "And you were all everything she'd dreamed of."
"It was like she'd forgotten all about you, wasn't it?" he asked. "I still remember. I remember you coming out first from the driveway, holding her back. Making sure there was no danger. Then she came in, and you stayed back. When Esme and Rosalie took her in, you disappeared."
"I had to get a grip on myself," I said. "And then… I swear, it was an accident. I was thirsty. Too thirsty, and it's always worse when I'm stressed…" Why was I begging, I wondered to myself. Why was I apologizing for a mistake made sixty years ago?
"Was that when Emmett and Edward found you?" Carlisle asked. I nodded slightly. "And Edward's probably been in your head ever since, keeping tabs."
"We've had an agreement," I said quietly. "He keeps his mouth shut, I keep mine shut. Alice is happy. That's what I really want. Everything else is meaningless."
"But the last few years have you questioning how safe it really is here with us," Carlisle finished. "Jasper, it's your first instinct in a crisis. Protect what's yours – Alice. I've seen it in action. When Bella figured out the truth, it was your first response: the Volturi might be coming – protect Alice. Victoria came from Seattle with those newborns – protect Alice."
"That could've happened anywhere, with anyone," I replied automatically, saying the words I knew Alice would say if I'd ever dared to speak these thoughts aloud. Which led me to my second train of thought: why wasn't he angry? I was all but accusing him of purposely putting Alice in mortal danger! Accusing him of stealing her attention and her affections! God, I was being such a heartless, cruel, selfish cad, that I was practically demanding Alice's attention for 24 hours a day for eternity! Why wasn't he angry?!
"But it's given you the reasonable doubt you need," Carlisle prodded gently. "Because you know in the end, she'll let you have your way, because she knows you have only her interests at heart."
I couldn't take it anymore. "God, why aren't you angry?" I demanded.
Carlisle actually sat back and laughed. "I should be asking you that question!"
"I am angry!" I exclaimed.
"But not at us, Jasper!" Carlisle laughed again – he seemed to find this genuinely funny. "Sixty years is a long time to keep a truce with somebody hasn't been exactly clean on keeping his end. God knows Edward's slipped up on 'keeping his mouth shut' in the last sixty years. You're angry with yourself, Jasper! You're mad because you're jealous and you know you have no reason to be!" He allowed himself a few more seconds of laughter before he continued in a more serious tone, "Maybe it's time for you and Alice to take a break from us. A few years away to regain some perspective with no pesky Cullens around to interfere."
"And what were you planning on telling everybody else?" I asked.
"Everybody else has done it too, Jasper," Carlisle reminded me. "Edward left for a few years. We kicked Emmett and Rosalie out for the better part of a decade. At the rate they're going, we may end up kicking Edward and Bella both out for a while again. We don't have to make it into any more serious than that if you don't want to. I'm assuming that we're trying to avoid upsetting Esme." He sighed and shook his head. "You know, I appreciate the thought, I really do, but she's tougher than you all give her credit for. You're only spoiling her with all this coddling."
I sighed, dragging my fingers through Alice's soft hair as I thought over his words. "I'll think it over, Carlisle."
"That's all I'm asking, Jasper," he said quietly, standing up. "Now, are you going to sit out here and suffer in silence, or are you going to bring her back to the house and spread the pain?"
I thought about it a moment, then said, "Might as well spread the pain."
