Chapter 6

"Don't know what you mean." Leaning against the wall and aiming to sound as indifferent as possible, which somehow I do, Jasper cocks an eyebrow.

"You don't, huh?" he says and I shrug.

He's roughly three inches shorter than me, probably two decades older, and unimpressively lean. His gait is slow, tipping just to the left, so if he's here as some sort of physical threat I'm not intimidated. Jasper knows something, that much is clear. I do have money and plenty of it, because of a trust left to me. To say that I have some trouble to contend with, well, that would be true as well. Whatever Jasper intends to add to this day, I'm not up for it.

A few silent moments pass between us, but the woman who yelled at a man in the apartment below earlier has begun again. Her voice bellows up the stairwell. Jasper looks over his shoulder then back at me. "We can stand here all day, Edward, but I think you're going to want to hear what I have to say without prying ears, so let's cut the crap and go inside."

"Whatever you have to say you can say it right here."

"You're wasting time. Just open the door."

"I'm not in the mood for games, Jasper. What do you want."

"Me either," he says and scratches his lower lip with his thumb. "I have information about your father, Carlisle Cullen. Where he is. What he's been up to for the past few years. Ready to let me in now?"

"I think you're mistaken. Carlisle Cullen isn't my father," I say and turn to unlock my door, my hand shaking.

"Yes, he is," he says, unconvinced of my lie. "I worked with him at SBS. I knew your mother, Esme, and your sister…I'm sorry for what happened." I close my eyes, turning the key as he walks up behind me. "Edward, I'm the one who gave you the suit."

In a single fluid motion, I throw the door open with one hand, grabbing Jasper by his throat with the other, pushing him inside so fast he gasps for breath. I kick the door closed behind me as Jasper stumbles toward the middle of the room and falls to his knees.

"Who are you? Tell me now or I promise to hurt you in ways you'll want to be lobotomized to forget," I say, my voice low, growl-like, wanting him to feel the venom dripping from it. My father, the suit…He's lying…My mother and sister…all this time. All this time. He raises one hand, holding his throat with the other. "Get up." I'm standing over him before he has a chance to take another breath. "I said get up."

"Easy," he rasps, slowly maneuvering himself off the floor. "I'm here to help you."

"You're here to help me," I repeat and move closer to him. So close that I can smell cooking grease on his clothes. "And you gave me a suit? Understand this, Jasper, I don't like you and right now that does not bode very well for you. I meant what I said about the lobotomy…Don't try me."

I would not get any satisfaction if he were to visibly tremble or beg or plead. The satisfaction I do get comes from the comprehension settling across his face. The way his eyes grow clear and how, as the redness leaves his skin, his features go dour.

"You have one minute to tell me who you are."

He nods then licks his lips. "My name is Jasper Whitlock, and yes, I'm the one who left the suit for you outside your door." Jasper clears his throat. "It gives you the ability to do things that aren't humanly possible, and it was made specifically for you by your father several years ago. You already know he was an engineer at Synergy Bio Systems, a company focused on a greener way of living, but you're not aware of all the projects he'd worked on.

"Carlisle and I had developed a material that was strong and durable enough it surpassed what the military currently use. As you know, it's flexible, moving with your body as though you're—"

"Time's up, Jasper." My father made my suit. It will be burned as soon as Jasper is through here.

He holds up a hand again, taking a step back. "Yes, alright. It's indestructible and practically alive. Actually, in your case it is." He pauses, and I lift my chin, waiting for him to continue. "What we discovered was that when…Your father found a way…How do I explain this…Edward, the fibers of the material were fortified with an agent Carlisle created which he then, through a sophisticated amalgamation of your cells, your DNA, has made the suit what it is. Made you what you are.

"You're the only one in which the suit will do what he meant for it to do. It has power over you just as you have power over it," he says. I fist my hands at my sides. I no longer see him as the quiet cook who takes sandwich orders from Marie, but a man who may have the answers I have needed for too long. "It lives as long as you live, working with your body, your mind…when you wear it you are, essentially, immortal."

He steels himself, his expression severe, and to hear another say aloud what I know to be true is a mighty thing, and for a second I don't feel entirely alone. But that second passes as quickly as a blink. "Why now? Why did you come forward and not him?"

"He can't," Jasper says.

"No? Too busy in the lab? Have I just been his guinea pig and now that he sees that his creation is a success he'll announce to the world what a scientific genius he is?"

Jasper motions toward my couch and after I refuse to sit, he does. He positions himself on the edge, resting his hands on his knees, and tells me my father is mentally incapacitated, currently residing in Glendale Hills and has been for the past four years. He says my father had begun to show signs of lunacy when I was a child, and his tone is even, as if he is stating simple facts as only a scientist would. "It's why he and your mother decided to not be together any longer, though she kept him in your life for as long as she was able. Rather, for as long as it did not affect you and your sister."

There is a short pause from the time he confesses this secret that he should not be the only one privy to until I speak again. "You said he made the suit for me."

"Yes, he did, prior to going completely insane. His intentions were not this, Edward," he says, waving his hand toward the window. "Not for you to become anyone's hero, but to have the ability, if you wanted. He told me once that he saw something in you, from the time you were a small child, that you would do great things."

"And so you took it upon yourself to fulfill his fantasy."

"Not a fantasy, Edward. Look at what you've done already, without guidance, without a soul to rely on, you've taken it upon yourself to do what he knew you were capable of," he says as a flicker of excitement flashes in his eyes.

"What is it that you want from me, Jasper? You still haven't told me why you decided to introduce yourself now and quit playing the short order cook. How did you know I'd go there?"

He stands then walks toward the window. Jasper tugs on the thin curtain limply hanging on it. "You're being accused of murder, Edward. I know you didn't do it, but you were there," he says, looking back at me as though searching for confirmation. But I can't give that to him because I don't remember. "Those people out there will turn against you, and that won't do in your pursuit to find out who took your mother and sister from you…It wasn't hard to figure out you'd want to avenge your family, which is why just months after she passed—"

"You mean after she was killed."

Jasper apologizes, then continues, "Which is why I delivered it to you. I wanted to help you, then and now. I didn't say anything before because I didn't think you would be receptive to me, but now you have no choice. I've been watching you and as far as knowing you would go to Marie's? Well, that's something you'll have to see to believe."

I suddenly feel small, as if I've been stripped and bared. Vulnerable in the worst of ways. And I wonder if this is Jasper's intent. "Show me," I say.

Before Jasper and I leave my apartment, I pick my suit up off the floor of my bedroom. Fold it neatly and place it into the box in which it came. For a while, I stare at it, rub the material between my fingers, feel its energy. I don't trust Jasper, and I don't forgive my father.


We drive out of the city, past the parkway that leads to the hospital and continue on for a good hour.

It is tucked away, out of sight from everyday people who commute on this road to travel to wherever they are going. This place does not fit within the scope of the sane, even though the stone sign that reads Glendale Hills that sits atop a grassy knoll is welcoming, the building itself is not. It is cold and brooding and cement, and not a single showing of life can be seen. At its highest point, it is ten floors, and stretches out hundreds of feet, though not flat across as it appears to be several buildings all connected in a zigzag pattern.

Jasper warned that his something was here, where my father is, but I said nothing, because it was him I was referring to anyway. I need to see him, see his condition for myself.

Just as the asylum looks on the outside, it is that much but more on the inside. Drafty but smells of bleach and completely silent except for the shuffle of the nurses' feet on the gray tiled floor.

This is where my father lives. My entire family is contained by machines and metal, bleach and concrete and dirt. It is almost too much to bear.

I glance over toward Jasper as we walk down the corridor leading to where my father is. "Will he recognize me?"

"I'm not sure."

"It shouldn't have been your decision to keep this from me."

We stop at a door with a small, square window. "I was only carrying out your mother's wishes," he says and turns the handle. His admittance makes me sick to my stomach.

"Wait," I say. "Were you at her funeral?" He nods and opens the door.

Inside there are sparse furnishings: a few white round tables, metal chairs with plastic seats, and a single potted leafy plant in the corner which offers the only color in here. Here, too, it is quiet. Just a constant murmur of noise and hushed tones.

Jasper points to my right. "There," he says.

He is frail and alone. Where I remember there being blond it's now mostly gray and he looks to be years and years older than he is. I wasn't sure what I would feel when I saw him, but it's not pity or empathy. I don't think I feel anything.

"Carlisle," Jasper says, and he looks up.

His eyes are cloudy and blue, and it takes ages for him to understand that the person he's trying focus on is the one who called his name. It is a sad reunion between him and Jasper, the way they look at each other, exchanging something that I do not understand; I have no idea how long it's been since Jasper was here last—I didn't ask. And then he looks at me and it is instant. His cloudy eyes glisten and spill over, and I am not prepared for this. I do not want this. "You came home," he says. He stands and walks past us and is led from the room by a younger man dressed in white.

Jasper takes hold of my elbow, opens his mouth to say something, and before I tell him to not say anything at all, thinking how much of a coward my father is, there are fingers digging in to my other arm.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz little bee. Here you are and now we're three," she says. She's small with dirty black hair and big, blackish eyes. She smells, bad. "Stinger's gonna get you."

"Alice," Jasper says, and I turn to him. "Let go." She hops away, mimicking riding a horse, slapping at air that I'm assuming is supposed to be the horse's ass.

"Who is she?"

"Just a patient. I met her a while back when visiting Carlisle." Alice is across the room, putting her imaginary horse away. She skips back toward us. "She's the something."

"She's how you knew I'd go to Marie's. Perhaps you belong here as well."

Alice sniffs my shirt then rips a button from it. "Cookie cooks, cooks. I told him it was you. Told him where to go, I did, I did." She stops, freezes then looks up at me and whispers, "I want to make soup, let me have a piece of your hair."

"No."

"You're a bad, bad man," she says, and Jasper tells her to be nice. "Yes, yes. Alice is nice. Alice is good." Her face crumples, her brow furrowing so deep that her eyes are mere slits as she tilts her head toward the ground. "Help her, Edward."

I step back. "I'm leaving," I say to Jasper then walk out the door. He's on my heels, attempting to explain. "Is this a joke?"

"No, it's not, Edward. I know this is a lot to process, preposterous even, but she had said other things. Things that were odd, obviously, but strangely came true. I took a chance, not knowing another way to…insert myself into your life. Look," he says grabbing hold of my arm. "You don't have time to doubt me. You're going to have to trust me."

"I don't."

"I'm not surprised. I wouldn't either if I were you, but you don't have the luxury to deliberate right now." He steps closer and lowers his voice. "They're going to turn against you, the public. Unless you plan to go into hiding, the police will eventually find you."

"No, they won't."

"They will, because you're going to wear the suit to find the ones you're after. You know you will, and when you do you'll run the risk of getting caught. Immortality or not, you'll always be hiding…You're putting Rose at risk."

I would throw him through the wall if not for the gaggle of nurses twenty feet from us, and he sees it. He sees the anger that makes my hands tremble and my insides quake.

"I swear on my life that you have my best interest, Edward…Okay," he says, though I gave him no indication I believe him or that I even want him to continue. "Take a day to let all this sink in, but then you need to apologize to the girl."

"What girl?"

"Marie's granddaughter, Bella."