A/N: Hey all, updating again!! I'm so glad I got support for the last chapter (except for my friend MishyFish, whom I argued with over Italian food for like 30 minutes about how she didn't know crap about Jasper's accent because she's not actually FROM Texas like yours truly…cough… while her mom looked on confusedly…lol). I win. Ha. So this chapter may be a little weird. Just to explain why I didn't make Jasper into a demented redneck like most Jasper fics do, let me just say this: I told you he had an accent. He doesn't have to say Texan things 24/7 to give it that feel- the accent is supposed to be in YOUR OWN LITTLE HEAD. So get over it if you don't like me having him speak English like a normal human being. :P
MishyFish: Just for you, my dear, I'm going to include some massive Texan phrases. And you can't deny them- BECAUSE YOU AIN'T FROM TEXAS, NOW ARE YA? :P You brought it upon your own head. Prepare yourself for some angus burgers and horsewhippin'.
KajiMori: Sorry about the rant, hahaha. Thank you so much for your compliment, I hope you keep reading!!
READ AND REVIEW NOW YA'LL, Y'HEAR?
-Wild Fire: The Spread-
Still having a few minutes before she would have to go to school that morning, Sasha decided to take a lovely shower in the privacy of her little apartment. Since she'd spent most of the past few days running around like a chicken with her head cut off, working at a construction site, and sitting on top of a weather vane, she had accumulated a significant amount of grime on her person.
Pea coat, leggings, long T-shirt, and underwear all went flying haphazardly into the laundry bin, the bra ricocheting off the corner of the container and ending up sagging to the floor beside it. It then seemed to suddenly reappear back into the bin. Sasha didn't like crap lying around on the floor, especially in the cramped space she had- the bathroom was small, rectangular, and efficient, with powder-blue wallpaper and white porcelain. The shower was a stand-up only affair with a little glass door for privacy.
So much for privacy, the vampire grumbled to herself as she stepped into the hot gush of water, the top layer of dirt immediately sloughing off her skin and swirling down the drain. If that arrogant jackass keeps up his little habit of spying on me like he did last night, who knows where he'll be watching me next? She grabbed the bottle of apple-nectarine scented shampoo and lathered furiously, her scalp taking the brunt of her annoyance with this subject. The tangy scent permeated the room with the steam of the shower.
Sasha was amazed at how much better she felt after she got out of the shower, having scoured herself clean with the soap and sponge. I must have accumulated two pounds of dirt on myself in two days!
Today she threw on a horizontally striped mini dress, a pair of navy-blue leggings with holes in both the knees, and her peacoat and combat boots. After giving herself the unnecessary once over in the mirror, she swished out the door with a small smile on her face. It's payback time.
--
Sasha made sure she made it to the school fifteen minutes early that Monday; this kind of trap was going to take some delicate laying to get the ultimate results.
The first place she visited was the teachers' lounge.
"Now, miss… what was your last name again… Baryon, you're not allowed in here! Where's your permission form…" the grey-haired, bespectacled school counselor making her daily shot of espresso stopped mid-scold to take a shocked look at her student. Sasha's red eyes were wide, a haunted look about her face. "What's wrong, dear?" the kindly old woman asked. The girl whimpered, and then proceeded to throw herself into her teacher's arms.
"My goodness!" gasped Mrs. Finnegan, awkwardly patting Sasha on the head, not quite knowing what to do. The hug had knocked the wind out of her. What are the kids eating these days?
"Oh Mrs. Finnegan," sobbed the student into her ample bosom, "It's just awful! I can't believe it!"
"What on earth is wrong, Miss Baryon?" asked the teacher, trying not to sound sharp. The young woman lifted her head and stepped away, seemingly awkward with grief, and gave her a stricken look. "Didn't you know? Jasper Cullen… his grandfather has been kidnapped and killed!"
What? thought the teacher, confused beyond belief. "What?"
Sasha looked at her teacher in the most wretched manner conceivable. "No one… no one knows yet. I thought maybe if I told you, you could speak to him… he was so close to his Grandpa… he's a mess right now," she whispered, as if it was a huge secret between her and the confounded looking woman.
The said confounded woman tried to pull her scattered brain together, failed, and tried a second time. "Er, of course I can speak to him. What an awful tragedy. Now, what was Jasper's grandfather's name, dear?" she asked nicely.
Sasha sniffed hugely, scrubbing at her eyes with her wrist. "They called him Al…" She had had no idea what to make up for the guy's name, but Al had just come to mind for some reason. She suddenly lifted her head up and looked Mrs. Finnegan square on, knowing she'd have to do a little dazzling to make her teacher take the next statement seriously.
"But there's something else you have to know," she said weakly, trying to look as pitiful as possible. "Al was a transvestite… they loved him anyway, of course, but… they always referred to him as 'she.' You'll probably have more luck getting him to open up if you do that."
Looking more goldfish than woman at this point, Mrs. Finnegan nodded dumbly. Wow. Talk about a family with issues. I've been waiting ages to crack one of those Cullen kids… this may be my only chance!
Sasha, continuing to paste the long-suffering expression on her face long after she left the lounge, grinned like a hyena inside her head. This is going to be good. But I'm not done yet. Oh, no.
--
For the next ten minutes or so before classes began, Sasha rushed around the school telling every girl in the vicinity that Jasper was going to ask someone to the homecoming dance today. Of course, most of the girls, though naturally put off a little by the danger humans sense when around vampires, were no fools when it came to choosing homecoming dates- Jasper was one of the most handsome young men at school, and who wouldn't want THAT on her arm at a dance? The female population was a tittering, giddy mess by the time the first bell rang.
Sasha was very pleased with herself as she sat down at her desk in first period English. She looked over at the spot a few desks over, where Jasper usually sat in the class. A perfect view. If all went according to plan, Jasper was going to be relentlessly harassed all day- either by well-meaning teachers concerned for his emotional well being due to the murder of his transvestite grandfather "Al", or by girls who were sure he was going to ask them to the homecoming dance.
The funny thing was, Sasha had no idea just how chaotic the results of her plan would actually be.
--
The scent of Jasper wafted across her nostrils as soon as he walked into the room, already filled with children boredly writing the assignments down off the white-board. He gracefully sat down in the desk a few spots away from her, and pretended to copy his assignments. Sasha smirked… and waited.
Sure enough, after a few minutes, the two girls immediately to her left started whispering and giggling, looking pointedly at Jasper every few seconds. A girl on her right winked once, and then waggled her eyebrows at him. It took only half a second for Jasper to notice- God only knew how, the girls weren't being that loud- but notice he did. And an expression of slight annoyance crossed his face as he tried to ignore his admirers. The admirers weren't to be deterred, apparently.
"Jaaasper," purred the girl who had wiggled her eyebrows at him, running her finger along his forearm and looking deep into his topaz eyes. Sasha winced a little, deciding to tell Mary later that she needed to practice not looking cross-eyed while flirting. "I hear you're thinking about asking someone to the dance soon. Any idea who that might be?"
Jasper managed not to flinch- bravo- and gave Mary a martyred look.
"Now Mary, you know I'm otherwise taken," he said kindly but firmly, as if he had to deal with this regularly. "Please don't take this bad to heart, but I can't ask you. I'd be betrayin' my Alice."
Mary pouted and sat back down, still pushing her (flat) chest out far more than was necessary. "Really?"
"Yes ma'am," said Jasper, grinning at her. "But I'm mighty flattered all the same."
Sasha could not stop herself from rolling her eyes. He thinks he's such a charmer.
But she had to admit his kind of charm worked on these human girls- they'd all redoubled their efforts now that they'd seen he was unavailable. All want the most what they cannot have.
After watching a few more exchanges like this, Jasper getting more irritated and less gentlemanly each time, Sasha was pleased with the success of the first part of her plan. But something weird was going on that she hadn't planned for- though he was obviously irritated, Jasper was giving off a distinct air of discomfort that had nothing to do with irritation. He actually seemed to be a little hot and bothered.
Sasha watched the blonde vampire shift continuously in his seat, seeming to be unable to find a comfortable position, a pained look on his angelic features. If she didn't know any better she would have said he was constipated. What IS it with these Cullens and their facial expressions? All she saw was all the girls in the room looking at him lustfully, twirling their hair and batting their eyelashes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to make a vampire squirm, at least.
The bell finally rang for class to begin, startling everyone out of their various states of squirming, observing, and flirting. Sasha grinned evilly.
Let phase two begin!
--
A few seconds after the bell had rung, the portly old gentleman in charge of the English class waddled into the room, eyeing his catatonic students wearily. No one was going to pay attention today- he could already see that quite clearly.
"Alright, class, let's just begin where we left off on Friday," he sighed, beginning to write the definition of a synecdoche on the white board. "Who can tell me what this is?"
But before anyone could say anything, a sharp rap came on the door of the classroom. Sasha snapped to attention, and on seeing that it was in fact Mrs. Finnegan, slid down into a comfortable position in her chair. This was going to be worth watching.
The frazzled school counselor, after entering quickly, drew the English teacher aside and whispered something into his ear, much to the interest of the bored students. A few even sat up to look when they'd been asleep a few minutes ago.
The old man glanced at Jasper for half a second, and then nodded to the counselor, who left the room and closed the door, but remained outside. With a sorrowful wheeze, he turned toward Jasper, who at this point still looked pretty uncomfortable- which was only being exacerbated by this little exchange.
"My dear boy," said the teacher kindly, "would you please step over here for a moment? I'm so sorry for your loss… We're all sure your… er… "Al" is in a better place now."
Sasha watched, surprised, as Jasper's whole back stiffened and his eyes went wide with horrified confusion. Why was he reacting so… strongly? Surely he should only be confused and annoyed, as he HAD no transvestite grandfather named Al? His eyes quickly drained from topaz to black, and he just seemed to barely catch himself before baring his fangs in front of the whole class; Sasha knew the reflex, having had to stop herself before in exactly the same way in similar situations of anger or grief. After a long moment, in which he seemed to have turned to a pillar of stone, Jasper raised his eyes to the teacher's.
"Where," was all he grunted out. "Where is she?"
The poor sod had only opened his mouth a fraction to suggest Jasper go talk to the school guidance counselor when a wave of the most awful despair and fury bowled over Sasha's insides, nearly causing her to have a retching reflex, which made no sense due to her inability to have food in her stomach. She couldn't see for a few seconds, the pain was so bad, and when she managed to lift herself up weakly on her elbows, she saw the rest of the class- AND the teacher- having the same problem. Besides the teacher and a few exceptionally strong ones, most of the students had fainted dead away from emotional overload. What the hell?
She had only just managed to lift herself up fast enough to catch a glimpse of Jasper's retreating back down the hallway, with the haplessly sobbing counselor hurrying after him.
"Wait, Jasper! We know Al was special to you, we know she was! Please talk to me, you'll feel better if you explain things…" begged Mrs. Finnegan before her eyes rolled back in her head and she slid to the floor, wailing uncontrollably, as another wave of the weird emotional distress was sent over the classroom from Jasper's direction.
Sasha saw it coming this time, and steeled herself. It only bowled her over a little this time.
What in the fresh hell is going on here?
Leaping over the six or so desks to the door (everyone else was knocked out at this point), Sasha pushed open the door light as a feather and sprinted after Jasper, careful to make no noise. The atmosphere was so… thick, somehow, with grief that she had to keep stopping herself from dry sobbing, as was wont for vampires to do.
He was only about a dozen yards down the hall from her stealthy pursuit when he turned suddenly and glared daggers at her, effectively stopping her in her tracks. A pained snarl seemed to rip from the very foundations of his perfect body, his lips trembling as he spat angry words at her.
"Leave me the hell alone. You have no idea what you're foolin' with, Miss Sasha, and that is for damn sure."
Sasha could only stand, rooted to the spot, and stare as the blonde vampire disappeared into thin air.
What had she done?
--
She decided to follow Jasper at a safer pace, flitting around the school campus until he found all of his brothers and sisters and rounded them up into one group behind the science building; everywhere they went, students and teachers went down in convulsive, sobbing heaps, never noticing the sudden absence of the Cullens. A tall evergreen tree waved gently about twenty feet away from their conversation, in which with her enhanced hearing, Sasha knew she'd be able to listen to what they were saying. She shimmied up the tree, far more silent than a mouse.
She saw Jasper confronting them, seemingly in a cold fury. All of the other vampires' faces were a combination of sadness and pain.
So they felt it as well. What a strange phenomenon.
"Did any of you know about this?" asked Jasper, seeming to be on the edge of howling. "How did those teachers know first? What happened-?"
"Jasper," said Edward quietly, seeming to realize something. Jasper looked at him with hollow eyes. "It's not real. It was a mistake. She's not dead."
Sasha suddenly felt the awful feelings lift from her heart to be replaced by utter confusion, and a kind of wild joy she couldn't quite understand. What was all the to-do about? All she'd done was make up some cock and bull story about a relative's death…
"Well I'll be damned and hog-tied," whispered Jasper in a broken and yet giddy voice. "Such a state, and over nothing. Oh, my Alice..."
Alice? Thought Sasha, her "bingo" sensor picking up. Well then, it was no wonder he'd nearly had a fit of apoplexy. By coincidence, she'd named her fictional grandpa "Al" and made him a "her"- and Jasper just happened to have a female whom he cared about named Alice. Go figure, if slang must be used.
The other Cullens seemed to relax a little, smiles on their faces now.
"Rosalie, Emmett. You can go back to class now," said Edward thoughtfully. The beautiful blonde and her boyfriend nodded, and disappeared. "Jasper, I heard those teachers' thoughts before you made them pass out…"
Jasper made an apologetic expression.
"No, it's quite all right. I understand… if I heard that Bella had…" Edward's face contorted for a second, but then he refocused. "Anyway, they seemed to have the idea that your… ah… grandfather had died."
Jasper's eyebrows rose.
"Yes, I know. Odd, isn't it? Oh, but you haven't heard the best part," he chuckled. "Apparently, he was a transvestite named Al."
A loud snort erupted from Jasper's nostrils, which turned into lilting laughter. His brother grinned slightly, sharing in the bizarre amusement.
After a few minutes, Jasper was grinning widely, though still visibly shaken.
"So that's all this little shenanigan was? Some fool kid just pulling my leg? Well now, isn't that just a barrel."
Edward smiled serenely, suddenly shooting a glance over in the exact direction of Sasha's hiding spot.
"I wouldn't say it was 'some fool kid', Jazz. You may want to check in the bushes."
Shit.
As soon as she knew her hiding spot had been discovered, Sasha took off like a bullet into the forest, not caring if her attendance record was besmirched. She'd heard a lot of confusing things and needed to make sense of them, but now was not the time for brainstorming. There were light shifts in the air current made by Jasper's pursuit through the trees, and he was gaining every second. Sasha had messed with a family of vicious vegetarian vampires.
And now one of them was hot on her trail.
--
A/N: Ooooh, cliffy. Bwahahaha. Please Review. The cliffy will be resolved sooner if ya'll review!! Love and cookies.