Chapter VII

Beautiful Lie

I showed Bella the rest of the house, she had many questions about my family, I told her their histories, and laughed at the ease with which she accepted the information that should have been terrifying for her. After looking through all the rooms upstairs, we made our way back to the back window wall again, and Bella finally came to questions about me.

I kept her close to me, as we looked out the window I drew her back against me, putting my arms around her body. I kept my head tilted slightly down so I could smell her scent, It felt peaceful to have her their with me, and the happy contentment that stole through me seemed to affect her as well, without my assistance. I consciously kept myself from using my abilities, because I wanted Bella to feel her own true emotions being around me. They fascinated and frightened me. I could feel the conflict of them as I told her the stories, and though she worked hard to keep any fear from showing, I did feel it slip at certain moments.

"What about you, Jasper? Everyone is decades old, Edward is over 100 and Carlisle is ancient, when were you born, where?" she asked me.

I chuckled, "Hmm, I was born Jasper Whitlock in 1845." she gasped, "In Texas." She turned her head and looked up at me. I kissed her forehead and continued, "I have very vague memories of my human life, snatches really, swimming, getting into trouble, my Mother's face. I don't recall anything clearly except for the time just before I was changed in 1861. I was in Galveston, because I'd joined the army. I effectively lied about my age, and found myself being a man before I'd perfected being a boy. I was good with people in general, I even had a knack for swaying their opinions on things. In the middle of the battle of Galveston, as mortar ships were approaching I convinced their officers to hold off long enough to get the women and children out before they attacked. We were given four days, and I ran back to my company and notified them about the change. I was placed in charge of escorting them out of the city. I took the first group and was heading back to organize another group when I came across three women who were walking alone. They were beautiful, entrancing. Everything about them was unusual. It was dark, and there was a war, I didn't give much consideration to what they were doing there, I only saw that there were two women and a young girl alone. Believing they were in danger, I stopped to help them. They talked and I listened, I only answered their questions because I was entranced with their beauty and I wasn't aware of a lot of things apart from what the tall one, Maria, told me. The other two, Lucy - the young one, and Nettie I later discovered; ran off. Maria asked me my name, I was so muddled by it all I gave her my rank and title, I thought she might be a ghost, though I'd never believed in such a thing ever before in my life."

I took a deep breath, I decided to go on, if Bella was going to be with me, she should know the truth of what that time meant. I inhaled deeply, smelling her scent and closing my eyes with the intoxicaton, then opening them went on again, "Maria took a step forward and leaned her head down, I thought to kiss me, I realized later - she was showing me what she was. She bit into my neck and my eyes sprang open in surprise. At the time I remember thinking it hurt, she reached down and with an ease that shocked me, picked me up and began running. Her speed was phenomenal, in moments we were in an underground basement. There were no windows, only two doors, an outer door and an inner door. She laid me on a large dinner sized table and I was sitting up looking at her, when the burning began. She'd started my change." I said looking Bella in the eyes.

Her eyes were wide, "Jasper? What...what was it like, being changed?" she asked.

"It was physical damnation unleashed on every cell in my body." I said frowning. "It's the strongest memory I have in my mind. The most eternally lasting. Linked to the strongest feelings I've had until recently."

She searched my eyes for more, but I looked away, ashamed for a moment, of what I wasn't sure, the memories I supposed. "Tell me Jasper, please, tell me about it." she begged.

I looked at her for a moment, concerned about whether she should hear it or not. She was accident prone, but she was fearless, and I wanted one day to be able to tell her I wouldn't trade my change, because without it, I wouldn't have met her. She'd need to understand the cost of that statement.

"When the burning started, I began to shake, and I looked at Maria, baffled by the feeling. It began as an unnatural warmth, and built up. It became hotter and grew exponentially...I threw myself back against the table, I was aware of very intensely cold hands on my left leg, I felt her bite me again, it caused no more sensation than a kiss, she did the same to the other ankle, my wrists and the other side of my throat. I only passingly recognized this, because I was consumed by a burning from the inside out. I lay on the table calling for help, calling for God...calling to die. I screamed in a way that would devastate the pride of any man for he himself to be aware of it. My pride, my self, my being and my soul were lost in fire. There was no rest, no reprieve from the pain, the crushing, excruciating feeling of every minute part of me being consumed. I know Maria and others remained nearby, but I don't know what they did, who they may have been, nor why they were there. I only knew I burned and it never ceased. My screaming didn't either, I can't describe what it's like to continue to scream at the top of your lungs past the point that your voice is absolutely gone. It's impotent, useless, yet I couldn't have stopped ripping each one out, slicing the knife point through over and over again. It went on for three days. my body should have needed rest, I would never rest again."

I had been reliving the experience in my mind, and as I refocused on the view outside the window I realized Bella was looking at me still. Her expression was filled with compassion and empathy. I kissed her forehead,

Her brows unfurrowed for a moment, then crinkled again, "You said you would never rest again...are you saying you don't sleep?" she asked.

"Never. I told you I was always awake long before the sunrise each morning." I grinned. She smiled, and then her face settled into a concerned expression, "What happened when it was over?"

"After the change?" I asked. She nodded.

"When the burning finally began to subside, it was actually sort of sudden. It burned white hot, I felt something in me give out, I realized later it was my heart, and my eyes opened on a new world. Although the difference being a vampire makes in the way you perceive and sense the world around you is shocking, other needs take over, the first thing I was, was hungry, or thirsty to be specific." I looked at Bella, there was no wariness or rejection in her eyes, only endless wonder and curiosity. I smiled at her, then realized she was expecting to hear more by the expression on her face, I let my smile fall, and went on."

"Maria was there, she stepped forward and asked me what I felt. I didn't for a moment believe I'd be able to speak, following all my screaming, but when I spoke my voice was clear and distinctive, beautiful even "Thirsty." I answered. My eyes must have widened in surprise, because Maria laughed. She stepped away from me, and opened the door out of the room. "Shall we hunt?" she said. She opened the door, and turned to me, smiling. I stood and followed her, we went out. We ran down the main street, and I felt as though I didn't so much run as fly. I staggered when I came across my first scent. It was like nothing I had ever smelled before, and I found my way to it before I'd even realized I'd changed direction. I came to a door of a small place, a small home. I entered, and the scent was all around me, it came most strongly from the room to my right. I went in, and there were two sisters sleeping in bed, I couldn't have stopped myself if I'd wanted to, all five members of that family perished because of me, in the few short minutes of me entering their home. The sisters first, the parents..." I looked out away from Bella, and took a step away from her. I clasped my fingers together and held my crossed thumbs against the bridge of my nose in my shame, "and the baby." I finally said.

I heard Bella gasp, and didn't dare turn around. I wasn't sure I could face her after my confession. After a moment or two, I ran my hands down my face in a seldom used gesture of stress. I looked at Bella's reflection in the window. She was standing still and staring at me, her eyes wide..I was grateful her reflection blurred her expression of horror, but I could still see it was there. "Maria helped me burn the house, I couldn't walk away and leave the grisly proof of my weakness behind for someone to find. Maria allowed me my fill that night, but she hadn't changed me for pleasure. She created me to be her assistant in retrieving her territory from a group of vampires who had forced her out. We accomplished her first goal, leaving Maria to the natural leanings of her greed. Soon I was helping her create superior armies to those in the surrounding area, because she wanted a better breed of killer winning her battles for her. I was eventually put in charge of the newborns and their training. Her support of my ability suited my natural pleasure in achieving promotion, and as I became better, she began to rely on me. I lived by and for her word and lived as she bid, because it was all I knew."

"Under my organization and supervision, we extended Maria's territory further than she'd initially dreamed possible, even moving into northern Mexico. I fought hundreds, if not thousands of vampires over the years. I didn't come away unscathed by either the battles, nor Maria's insistence that the newborns be destroyed after they were no longer suited to her purpose. Eventually, one of my recruits opposed this decision. He'd found a female vampire whom he'd fallen in love with, and who was destined to be destroyed in Maria's next clear out. When Maria gave the order, my recruit, who was my second in command, challenged it. He refused to allow her to be destroyed. She, her name was Charlotte, and Peter ran. I should have gone after them, but by that point I had already done enough things I found distasteful, to know that destroying Peter would be beyond what I was willing to do. Maria was unhappy, and couldn't understand how that event was a catalyst for a period of spiraling depression for me. I was unhappy with what I was being used for, what I had become. Peter and Charlotte returned several years later and convinced me to leave with them into the North where our kind lived without the territorial battles and the constant slaughter."

"I did leave with them, but even existing for myself alone, I still felt continual anguish and depression. I couldn't face all the carnage I'd been responsible for any longer. Even the minimal killing I did out of necessity made it difficult for me. I'm not sure if you've recognized it or not, but I'm able to affect the emotions of those around me, and by contrast, I'm also able to feel the feelings of those around me. Because of this ability, I could feel everything from my victims, that I'd felt myself in those last moments before Maria changed me. It became my torture, so much so that I eventually left Peter and Charlotte as well, because without my ability, they couldn't understand my personal pain." I felt Bella step forward next to me again, she wrapped her hands around my arm, and without looking away from the window, I laid my hand over hers and continued on.

"I tried to refrain from living as I had for the past century. When I succeeded I'd feel moderately better, eventually my weakness would get the better of me, and I'd spiral down again. I wandered many places whose names and memories of I'm not sure I can, nor wish, to remember until I stumbled on Alice. She was this overwhelming, little brazen thing. We found each other in a diner, in Philadelphia. She walked over to me and said, "You've kept me waiting a long time." I dipped my head and said, "I'm sorry ma'am." Then she held her hand out to me, and I took it...I was not in a frame of mind to deny a hand out. Alice told me about the Cullen family and possibilities I hadn't considered...she gave me hope. I left with her, we found the Cullen's and it was decided that since Rosalie and I bore a passing resemblance to each other, both being tall, blonde and similar in appearance, that I should become a Hale too. Alice took the Cullen name, and we've been with the family ever since."

I turned to Bella, gently pulling her hand off my arm and holding it in both of mine, "Alice saved me, because I hadn't had hope for so long that despair had all but ruined me. She gave me back to life. That's been enough for me." I raised a hand to Bella's cheek, "I would never have realized that I still had one step more to make if it hadn't been for you. I've been obsessed with overcoming my urge to deny my nature, that I'd missed something. I was missing my humanity Bella, and it took you, specifically love for you, to return that to me. Now instead of denying my nature, I've embraced my humanity, and it's easier to accept the monster I am when I know I can live with him, instead of against him."

Her face softened, and she smiled sweetly. I drew her into my arms and held her close. I tilted her face to me again, and kissed her as tenderly as I could, just touching our lips together with the gentlest of pressure. I lifted my head and she leaned her head against my chest. I held her head against my chest with my hand, enjoying the feeling of her warmth against the place she owned, the place where my heart would beat, if it still did. "Thank you." I whispered. She tightened her arms around me, and said, "You said you didn't come away unscathed by your battles. What did you mean?

I pulled up my sleeve and showed Bella one of my arms, she looked and said, "Jasper, what are all these crescent shaped lines? They look like..." she gasped. "Jasper, are these bite marks?" she asked me.

I smiled and wrapped my arm back around her. "I've been bitten by hundreds of vampires Bella, venom is the only thing which can leave scars on our kind. The only thing that never completely heals. These are my scars of battle."

She pulled my arm away from her back and pushed my sleeve back up. She kissed each scar softly, and then looked at me, squeezing me tight. "You're better than that now. You're better than I ever imagined you to be." We stood there holding each other, until Bella yawned hugely.

I chuckled, "You need to go to bed. Let's take you home." She yawned again, and nodded. "I think you'd better, or I'm going to have to answer some very difficult questions from my Dad tomorrow."

We went out to the garage, and I took her home.