A/N: Not surprisingly, this was a really tough chapter to write. I hope that y'all enjoy it, even though it isn't one of my favorites.


The night started out like every other night had since I'd been here. We were taken, by Peter, in groups to train and then brought back out to spar with each other. I knew that Peter hadn't lied to me about today being a very different day for me than all the others, but it seemed to fall so easily into this new pattern of normal that it was easy to forget that I was supposed to die today.

The sparring, which had once been easy and instinctual for me, had only been getting harder and harder. I was slowing down and getting weaker, losing my advantage of being a new newborn. Peter didn't like to hear me say things like that, so I didn't. He also didn't like my argument that the two of us should just pack our bags and get the hell out of dodge but I wasn't about to give up that argument and though it hadn't spared me from today and the whole having to pretend that I didn't know that some of us were slated to be killed by the very people that had created us thing, by the time the sun set I at least had a glimmer of hope. Peter had finally accepted that Jasper, regardless of what their relationship was like, would not bend and allow me to live. And Peter had been forced to choose between the two of us.

I'm not saying that I didn't think he was happy about it, maybe worried was a better word, but he was Peter, and worried and him were like oil and water, they just didn't mix well. I knew we'd be alright once we were away from this place, but as much as he disliked being here and what that meant for us, this place was the known evil and it wasn't until early in the day, when I was kissing and licking my way down his body that he'd finally caved and agreed to go with the devil that we didn't know instead of sticking with the devil that we knew since it would only end with me a pile of ashes.

As the time came for the sparring to end, we were broken up into smaller more manageable groups so that we could be escorted to feed and then back to our part of the camp. This wasn't any different than any other day other than the fact that every other day, I'd been put into groups that were led away long before there were fewer than ten of us left sparring. It was cruel, knowing what I know now, that they insisted on us fighting up until the very end. It was cruel, but not unexpected.

"Alright ass clowns," Peter's voice carried over the now writhing battlefield, "fall in."

Those of us that could still walk of our own volition quickly gathered in front of him trying to ignore the pleas of the ones that couldn't get there on their own. His face and eyes were hard as he studied us. Our numbers had taken a hit tonight and it was only through the grace of God and Peter keeping an eye on me during the fight that I hadn't been one of the ones to fall. I stood there, holding a chunk of my arm in place and waited for him to tell us what to do next.

"You and you," he pointed at two of my fellow newborns that had fared better than the rest of us. "Start a fire. The rest of you, clean this shit up."

Jasper joined him and studied us as we tossed bits of fallen vampire towards the fires. One of our newborns was sifting through the remains that scattered the field for the lower portion of his arm and his actions got the attention of Jasper and Peter. They had a low conversation, which I watched from the corner of my eye, and then Peter went to the one armed soldier. It happened so quickly that at first I wasn't sure that I'd seen it. But then Peter tossed the soldier's head into the fire and I knew that I had. Peter joined Jasper once more and the two of them discussed the battle that we'd just won and what it meant as if nothing had just happened.

"Why?" I asked Peter later that day as we lay on the pallet in his tent.

"Why what?" he replied.

I propped my head up in my hand, my elbow resting on his chest and I began to trace the pattern of bites that he had there.

"Why did you kill him?" my voice was quiet as I asked.

"Because," Peter stated plainly, "he was already dead."

"He just needed his arm," I said shaking my head.

"Exactly," he said taking my hand and pressing a kiss to it. "He wouldn't have survived his next battle."

"You could have helped him," was my reply as I tried to see how this man that loved and cared so deeply for me could be so callous about the death of someone so like me.

"I did," Peter said. "I ended him quickly. It takes extra blood to re-attach a limb and you're the only newborn here that even gets a portion of the blood it would take."

"What if it had been me," I asked.

"It never will be," he said and ended our conversation.

I had no idea how this thing was going to play out, no clue what Peter's plans were. I'd known him a year, and half the time I thought that his plans were simply him wanting things a certain way and flying by the seat of his pants to make it so. It didn't matter though; I hadn't lied to him when I told him that I trusted him with my life. I'd trusted him with it since I woke up here and he had done nothing to make me think that doing that was a mistake. He could be an asshole, a lot of times he was an asshole, but he was my asshole and everything that he did and every move that he'd made since I woke up had been done with the same single minded flying by the seat of his pants determination to keep me safe and alive.

Do exactly as I ask. Do exactly as I ask. That phrase kept playing over and over in my head as the group I was sparring with began to thin out. The sun was firmly over the horizon and I hadn't missed the thin column of smoke that was lazily drifting heavenward in the distance. I was all that was left. Peter had just come to get my sparring partner and had led him away without sparing a glance in my direction. I didn't take it personal because I knew that it wasn't. He was doing his job right now, and it didn't matter that I didn't like it, it was what needed to be done and he'd saved me for last but that was Peter.

He hadn't asked anything of me, yet. But I knew that when my time came and he gave me instruction that I would do just as I'd promised and follow his directions perfectly. Doing that is what had kept me alive this long and I wasn't about to mess with something that had proven that it worked. I sat on the ground to wait on him to come back for me. I knew that he would come back. He always came back to me.

We'd argued once about how easy he thought it was for me to spend the days when I wasn't with him in the area with the other newborns. It wasn't easy; I hated when my days weren't spent wrapped around him but it was easy for me to walk into the area where the newborns were kept knowing that I wouldn't be there forever and that he would be back for me. It was easy for me to endure the hatred from the other newborns and their suggestive taunts because I knew that they were nothing and the only thing that had any power to really hurt me was Peter and he never would. Physically, on the training field, he would hand me my ass in a heartbeat but those physical hurts were to keep me safe and I knew that they hurt him much more than they did me. It was easy to heal a bite mark or reattach a limb; it was much more difficult to accept that you'd just injured your mate.

"No," Peter growled at me during our second training session, "you've got to pay better attention to your movements."

"I'm doing the best that I can," I said quietly so that the others wouldn't hear our conversation.

"Do better then," he said as he came at me again and I couldn't figure out if he was angry with me or this situation or if that was just how Peter was.

I was faster than him, but he had so much experience that he seemed to know exactly what move I would make before I made it. I easily side stepped him, throwing out my arm to deflect his movement exactly like I thought he'd told me to. My arm was quickly bent behind me and his teeth were in my shoulder. I wanted to cry out at the pain that this bite brought me. It wasn't like the other bite that he'd given me which had only brought me pleasure; this bite reminded me of the fires of hell. He quickly removed his teeth and let go of my arm to take a fighting stance before me once again. The angry mask that his face was set in as he stood before me disguised the pain that thought I saw in his eyes.

"Again," he said and rushed me once more.

This continued throughout the whole of our session and by the end of it, I had figured out the intricacies of the moves that he was teaching me and how to apply them to different situations. He had bitten me three times and I still wasn't sure if I'd seen pain in his eyes or only wished it there. He escorted our group to the feed barn, but denied me my portion of the human. The other newborns looked at me with everything from pity to gloating and I didn't know which the more appropriate expression was.

Peter had explained to me that we were mates, after he'd explained to me what we were. He'd told me all about the mating phenomenon, though his knowledge was, he admitted, pretty limited. Everything that I'd experienced tonight, from our training session, the feeding that I wasn't allowed to take a part in, and the taunts that he allowed the other newborns to hurl at me as they were dropped off in their section of the camp, went against everything that he said mates were. He only added to my confusion when he dropped me off at his tent with his jaw set in a hard line and no words and left.

I sat on the pallet that I'd made in his tent, confused, and still in pain from the bites that he'd given me, to wait for him to come back. I hadn't been awake long enough to have come to the realization that he would always come back to me so the pain that I felt at the thought that he might not overwhelmed me. Everything had overwhelmed me since I woke up. Every emotion swelled out of my control and though I'd been slightly impulsive before I went through hell, it was nothing compared to this. Peter had said it was just a part of being a newborn and that it would pass as I aged but right now those words weren't helping me come to terms with the fact that I was at the mercy of a mate that didn't seem to care about my well-being.

He did come back to me.

"Come with me," he said quietly to me as he held open the tent flap and I rose without a word to follow him.

He led me to the feed barn and into one of the stalls before presenting me with a human.

"Drink," he said as he offered it to me. He'd already exposed the blood for me and I quickly latched on to his bite mark to drink.

This feeding was so different from my last. There was no unrestrained lust from either of us as I took pull after pull of the cooling life-force from my victim. Peter held the body for me until I was done and then dropped it and moved to leave. I followed him back to his tent, though he'd said nothing about doing it, it was understood between us that I should. We stepped into the tent and his arms instantly went around me.

He held me close for not nearly long enough only breathing in my scent as his face pressed into the top of my head. He then moved his hands to the buttons of my shirt and opened it enough to slide it over my shoulders. His eyes locked on the bite marks that now littered my shoulders and the mask that he had been wearing at training fell and I could see the pain. He dropped his mouth to my shoulder and licked each of his bite marks closed. When he was done and the bites were sealed into dull aches instead of the pinpricks of burn that they'd been before, he wrapped me in his arms again and I understood that even though he hated the method he would do whatever he had to so that I would be safe. I'd wished then that there was more that I could do to keep him safe and I knew that the best way for me to do that was to let him know that I understood.

I leaned my head back, forcing him to look at me and I smiled at him before rising onto my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. One kiss led to another kiss which led to our clothes being gone and me being wrapped around him. I was quickly discovering that it was the best place to be in this world that I'd woken up into and the only place that just felt right. I'd loved the sex that I'd had with Peter before, but that night it had been different, with different instincts driving the both of us and I'd learned that it didn't always have to be feral and lust filled to bring either of us pleasure.

The sound of footsteps broke me from my memories and I turned my head in their direction. The hope that I'd been clinging so tightly to since the sun went down and Peter had asked me to just do as he said shattered. I rose to my feet and tried to hide the sob that was threatening to break free as Jasper strode towards me. I knew that he could feel everything that I was feeling and it didn't really matter now that he would know the truth so I didn't even try to hide what I was feeling.

"Come on," he barked at me with a wave for me to join him and I did.

"I can feel what you're feeling, you know," he said after a few steps in a much less harsh voice.

"I know," I quietly replied as I felt my heart break a little more at the thought of leaving Peter here with nothing but this uncaring monster for his friend.

"Cut it out," he barked back at me.

"I can't," I said to him. "It's not just me that's dying. I'm just the one that won't survive."

Jasper sighed and stopped walking, grabbing my arm and forcing me to look up at him. He studied my face for what felt like forever and I wondered if he was just going to end me now but he finally dropped his hands and started walking again. His pace was slower this time as if he'd picked up a great burden in the time that he was studying my face and I hoped that he had. I was glad that he could feel how much pain he was causing me and the only good thing about me having to leave Peter behind with him was knowing that the pain that Peter felt would haunt him every day for the rest of his existence. I wanted Jasper to pay for what he was doing to us. He didn't speak again until we were nearly to the fire and I almost didn't hear him because my eyes and thoughts were already on Peter.

"Run ahead and tell him good-bye," he whispered.

I ran, as fast as I could, straight to Peter and wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest. I didn't want to tell him goodbye and I didn't want to leave him. I didn't know what to say in the short time that I knew we had left that would bring him any sort of peace.

"You didn't come," I said to him knowing that he could hear the unshed tears in my voice.

"He insisted on bringing you," he said as his arms finally wound around me and I ignored the pissy tone of his voice because I knew it wasn't for me.

I could feel him inhaling my scent while his face was buried in my hair. He raised his head and moved his hands to my shoulders suddenly and he pushed me away slightly so that he could look at my face. I looked up at him and he winked at me before dropping his hands.

"Peter," I heard Jasper's voice slightly behind me, "you can head on back, and I'll take care of this."

"Run," was Peter's reply and because my reaction wasn't instantaneous, he screamed it again while smacking my ass. "Run, Charlotte!"

I heard the beginnings of a growl behind me and though it was nearly as hard as my last hug with Peter had been, I'd promised him and so I took off running as fast as I could. I wanted so badly to turn around and see what was happening, to make sure that Peter was alright, but I didn't. The sun was reaching its zenith so I was forced to be careful about where I was running.

I avoided running through open fields and towns, but I ran until the blue of the sky began to fade into the pinks and oranges that heralded the coming of night and when I saw the first star begin to twinkle in the sky, I finally stopped running and looked around me. I had no idea where I was. I found a fallen tree, and I walked over to it and sat down.

After sitting on the tree for three hours, I began to understand that my idea of a plan and Peter's idea of a plan were two completely different things. I ached to know if he was ok and where he was and what had happened after I took off. I had been thrown when Jasper had come to escort me to my death, because it was always Peter that came for me. He was the one that came for me because for us, that was how it had always been. I guess it was only appropriate that the man that I'd thought of as the devil for the past year would be the one to take me to die.

Peter had tried to convince me that he wasn't that bad, but I didn't think that I would ever think of Jasper of anything more than pure evil. Even his intended parting gift had been cruel to both me and Peter. No, Jasper was the devil here on earth; of that much I was certain.

"He's not that bad," Peter said to me as he brushed a stray hair from my face.

"You're right," I replied, earning a smile. The smile fell when I added, "he's worse."

"You just don't know him Darlin'," Peter said to me, but I just shook my head.

"I don't really want to," I told him meaning every word. "Peter, I watched him rip apart someone that was three days old today. All that boy did was panic when someone moved too close too fast."

"I know," Peter said with a sigh. "That's just how it is."

Peter had tried many more times to convince me that Jasper was less than the devil that I thought of him as, but each time he did, I had some new horror that I'd witnessed to contradict him. That was what I had left my mate with when I had run and the thought was terrifying me.

Approaching footsteps startled me to my feet. They weren't the sound of running steps but of someone walking through the underbrush. I raised my head slightly and sniffed the air and my face broke out into a huge grin at the scent that reached me.

"Peter," I gasped just as he came into view.

His eyes found mine and his smile could barely be contained by his face as he came to me. All of the terror of my run and having to leave him and not knowing what had happened to him welled up inside of me and when he opened his arms to embrace me, I braced my legs and shoved his chest as hard as I could, knocking him back on his ass.

"I was worried sick!" I yelled at him and my voice broke.

"Darlin' I," he started as he stood back up but I just shook my head.

"No," I replied, "I heard him growling and then you said run and I had no idea what the hell was going on."

I was so relieved that he was here and I knew that my outburst was not really showing him that but I couldn't stop myself.

"Dar-," I didn't let him get any further because he had wrapped his arms around me and he was here and we weren't there and I didn't want to hear about any of it right now. I pressed my lips to his before he could finish his word. None of the rest of it really mattered because we had made it and I had all the time in the world to hear about how.


E/N: Thank you so much to all of you that are reading, and extra thanks go to those of you that are reviewing. Your reviews light the proverbial fire under my ass that I need to keep writing. A special thanks goes out to my sister, Sunshine, for being so good on the love and support front. I'm not real sure I could get through writing the hard parts of this story without her.