Chapter Seven: The Hard Truth

Jason's POV

There are very few times in life where confusion meets clarity and for just a few seconds they become the same thing. In those few seconds though endless questions swirled around some of the answers were already there, staring you in the face. Staring into my face in particular. The man, whatever his name, was my father and the woman behind him was my mother, how did I know Simple logic and a primal instinct. Simple logic because when it came to the many facial features me and the man had were identical. Also the fact that he was staring me in the eye with gentleness and firmness radiating from them, like a father trying to calm his son. And the woman, well nothing really indicated that she was my mom except for the love, or at least that's what it looked like, pouring from her eyes and a pull like I had never known drew me to her. Telling me in whispers that I was hers and as I stared at both their faces I found I wasn't as mad as I thought I would be in fact anger was the one emotion I was barely feeling at all. I was more tired then anything, emotionally and mentally drained. Like a person who bottles to much hate, anger, and sadness up for too long and by the time the dam breaks they can't even cry because they can't find the strength or they can't stop crying because they no longer have a will to.

Sighing I sat down with heavy heart and worried mind. I looked back up at Cullen and saw that he was looking at us all in confusion and yet I detected hint of smugness in his face. I let lose a low growl from my throat and watched him with satisfaction as he stumbled back a step. The floor was cold compared to my warmer then normal body temperature and for that it came as a relief.

"Her name's Keira, she's my best friend, and the only bit of family I got left." I heard the man shift slightly and the woman choke back a quiet sob. The man sat down beside mw with a small sigh.

"Ok, surely Mr. Cullen over here will tell you where she is and keep you informed seeing as his father is the lead doctor at this hospital." I couldn't help but laugh a small humorless laugh. It was a hollow sound that caused even myself shiver.

"Its a bit more complicated then that." I told him with a slightly scrunched up face.

"As almost all things are. But how's it complicated? For as complicated as it may seem there's usually a very simple solution." The man said calmly.

"What are you a therapist, philosopher...or just guy who has way to much time on his hands? Anyway its complicated because I know what she's got and it isn't anything that they'll be able to treat." I told him impatiently while staring pointedly at Cullen.

"why won't we be able to treat it? Its not as if my dad is some kid who just got out of college?" His voice was arrogant and to many times had I heard that kind of voice during my time in foster care. It was a voice I had never wanted to hear again, the voice of a boy trying to sound like man by trying to sound better then everyone else by boasting about his father. Well at least in this case it was his father that was being used.

"Oh yeah, I know your daddy's got a couple of centuries under his belt of expertise but the fact that he exists only solidifies my earlier statement that he won't be able to treat her for what she's got." My voice was cold ice and i saw Cullen flinch. I turned to look at the man beside me with a freezing glare. "I need to find her before it stops. She wouldn't want what she'll have the instinct to do." I watched as the man and woman's eyebrows raised in confusion before realization fell down upon them. I heard Cullen growl furiously and I knew he had read whatever had went through their minds.

"You bit her. You sick animal...you bit her! What did she ever do to you, she was innocent." His voice sounded so scandalized a the thought that I had taken Ria's innocence...if only he knew it was actually he who had. How scandalized would he be then?

"Well, apparently the last century or so has taught you nothing about assuming anything. Because you would know that assuming anything makes an ass out of anybody and the assumptions made are usually faulty." I looked at the man with a raised eyebrow. "Guess I'm going to have to do this the hard way."

I didn't wait to see his reaction but closed my eyes and let the sense of sight leave me and shifting my awareness to my other senses. Hearing, and smell enveloped my senses. Every whispered insult and every loud spoken conversation I could now here, every chemical used in the hospital was now in my nose, along with every person who had blood running through their veins. Without to much trouble I found her heart beat, still beating erratically and faster then I had ever heard it before. Fear coursed through me and the need to see her, to get her to a safe place.

"2nd floor, hall 3b, room 203. I whispered to the both of them even though I knew cullen heard perfectly. Looking over at Cullen I couldn't help but smirk. "Thank you, you've been ever so helpful." Sarcasm laced my words and before any of them could say anything I was already to the second floor, into her hall and then into her room.

The doctor, Carlisle I think Bella had once called him, was rushing around the room for medical supplies. But the amount already discarded around where Keira lay told me he was having little hope. I almost felt satisfaction until I saw his face. Filled with pure fear and agony at the thought of losing a patient or this particular patient? I did not know.

"You can't save her you know?" My voice was grim and the look on my face I knew couldn't be much better. The thought of Ria dying in anyway made me want to find the nearest corner, where I could lay in a fetal position until I withered away. And I knew that I might have to...some did not come out of the change successfully. Some never opened their eyes again after their heart stopped. I prayed with every fiber of my being that Ria was not going to be one of those people.

"Why can't I saver her." I sighed. I didn't really feel like explaining everything to these people. I still had to get her out and find a place where I could keep her until I knew how she did with the bloodlust.

"Because you can't cure yourself." With that I went over to where Keira was laying and picked her up gently. Carefully taking out the needle that he had stuck into her arm. I ignored his call of indignation but ignored it and as I waked out the door I was not surprised to find Cullen or my parents who were standing a little bit farther down the hall as if to see how everything was going to go down.

"What are you doing." My patience with the boy in front of me already very little was disappearing at an alarming rate.

"I'm not letting you have her after what you did to her." Stubborn. It was the first word that came to mind and I knew why Ria was so stubborn. Not only had she gotten it from her mother but from her father as well, though she would never admit it.

'Well she as she isn't an object o claim...you can't have her. And I'm trying to save the lives of innocence's and her from a guilt she doesn't deserve to have. AS for what I did to her, I've done nothing and if you really want to point the blame, how about you point it at yourself?" I knew "I was saying to much and that when Ria woke up she would more then likely kill me, but the boy in front of me angered me to no end.

He had, had everything...a girl worthy enough to be considered those of the worthiest angels, and a daughter who knew how to love and care but be fierce...he had given it all up. And though he never knew about the daughter he thought he had the right to take away Ria from me? I hoped he tried to stop me with more then just words...I would love for the reason to kill him...but I wouldn't. Because no matter what Ria said she was curious about Edward Cullen and a part of her, that she tried to keep hidden, had a desire to be close to him. To finally have her father. And if I being honest with myself a part of me wanted that as well, with my own parents. A very small part of me.

I took a step forward trying to dodge past Cullen but stopped when i felt him gripping my arm, in a grip that would have shattered a human's arm. I felt myself smirk...sometimes I wondered if I was lucky...but I quickly dismissed that thought, as I remembered Ria in my arms.

I'd let go if I were you." I heard an d saw everyone take a step back at the sound of my voice. It wasn't loud, rough, or animalistic...it was pleasant. The tone surprised Cullen too though he did a better job at hiding it. I felt the grip on my arm tighten and I looked down at my arm when his hand was grasping it.

Looking up quickly I let my eyes fade to a dark brown as my hand morphed. Raising it faster then even a Vampires eyes could pick up I swiped it across his face letting my claws dig into his flesh. My hand was no longer human looking from the elbow down it looked like a wolf's leg and yet my had still had human like qualities, I still had a thumb and my fingers flexed but instead of fingers nails I had claws that dripped with a venom that could and would slowly eat away a vampires skin.

I saw Cullen's face and the deep scratches that I had left and let myself smile again. I looked to where the man...or my father stood and smiled again.

"You're right I don't want to kill him...she would kill me if I did," I nodded towards Ria before turning back to Cullen. "I told you to let go. You brought this on yourself."

His face was contorted in agony...and he was biting his lip from screaming like a wounded beast. Holding down my laughter I turned to more serious and important matters as I heard Ria begin to moan louder.

"Hey Doc, you have a spare bedroom in that Mansion of yours right?" I asked not waiting for answer as I super sped out of the hospital and to the Cullen house.

I didn't knock and Pushed passed a surprised and motherly looking woman as I ran upstairs past others who tried to block me , looking into every room until I found one that was unoccupied and had a bed in it. Laying her down gently I pulled the chair that sat in the corner of the room over to beside the bed. Sitting down in it I held onto her hand which had grown cold.

Without any of them crowding around me I was allowed to think, and that ws a dangerous thing. I knew there wasn't another person like Ria and yet I knew our calculations were as close to the truth as any could get. I knew what could happen during the change...what would most likely happen. The thought of it made me shiver and made my stomach tie into knots.

I heard Cullen, and his father walk into the room along with my parents but I paid them no attention. Instead I continued looking at the girl on the bed...the one I had fallen completely in love with.

"There's something you're not telling us isn't there?" It was my father's voice that finally broke into my thoughts. Hours had passed by and still Ria was unconscious though her moaning was lessening and her heart was slowing...I knew that didn't necessarily mean a happy end. I looked up at him not realizing the tears that had welled up within the corner of my eyes. I shook my head no at him and looked back down at Ria.

"Me and Ria did the...calculations for the lack of a better word and realized there's only two ways her transformation can go. One she turns and wakes up when her heart stops and is a vampire like the majority of us are, Or two her heart stops and she never wakes up." My voice was bleak because I knew they didn't fully understand, that they couldn't.

"Yeah well, that is the risk we all have when we're changed. So what's the big deal? And when are you going to fix my brother." I didn't look to see who said it, I didn't need to, I already knew who it was.

"Emmett, I wasn't finished yet. We could only really judge by my own experience and given we've only got one species in common means that are conclusions aren't very reliable but as reliable as they can be with so little information. I changed when I was six...for five days I was in agonizing pain and on the fifth day I nearly went into Cardiac Arrest. Ria has been gradually changing for the last sixteen years and some odd months. Which led us to believe that the climax of her change would be harder on her body, more specifically her heart," I raised a hand in Emmett's direction to silence him from speaking so I could continue. "And Emmett who do you really think has a stronger heart... a werewolf child who's made for only one thing and that is to be able to keep up and destroy vampires or a girl who's had sixteen years worth of ware and tare on her fragile human heart? As for Cullen I heal him when she wakes up."

"what if she doesn't." I fought every urge within me that screamed to hit him, to kill him. But once more I knew that wouldn't be smart, besides I didn't truly want his existence to be on my hands, I merely just wanted to see him become dead instead of the living dead.

"Then The venom will continue to eat at all of him including bone until he's no more and as far as anyone else in the outside world is concerned Edward Masen Cullen died in the Spanish Influenza Epidemic. But don't worry if he actually makes it somewhere besides hell I'm sure Bella and Ria will be more then happy as to send him to the fiery pits of hell. After all Ria just doesn't like you and as for Bella you wouldn't treated her daughter like some sort of criminal for being what she wa. Half of one thing half of another...a concept your brains couldn't handle."

I looked up back at my parents to see if they had put together everything I had told them...and by the looks they were giving Ria and Cullen I knew that they had. Maybe there's hope for them yet. Sighing I turned my eyes back to Ria knowing that I hadn't told the Cullens everything. That though i had warned them that she might not make it through I hadn't given the percentage number as to her chance of coming through. Perhaps I hadn't told them because I couldn't admit it out loud. It would make it final that Ria only had a 20 chance of ever waking up again after her heart stopped beating. And as her heart slowed down more I knew it would be only minutes before judgment arrived and with its arrival would decide not only her fate but mine as well. For I would try my hardest to go where ever she went.

A/N Please Review...Please. This chapter seemed rocky to me. Also if you're wondering as to why Jason's parents haven't been introduced or why he hasn't introduced himself there is a reason. Its a quirk hat Jason has.