A/N: I am very sorry for two things: One: that this is so late. But, honestly, there wasn't much I could do about that. And two: that I suck at writing fight scenes. It's just not my strength. Plus Edward's ability sort of ruins any 'tension' in a fight. So I'm sorry this is so short, anticlimactic, and, well, boring. But there's only one more chapter after this an then an epilogue. We're nearing the end! Warnings for moderate mentions of torture and a lack of proper editing.
Chapter Eight: Flight
Jasper watched in horror as Edward emerged from the crowd directly behind Maria. He hadn't wanted Edward to see him this way – too weak to fight for himself, in too much pain to even use his ability to his own benefit. Much more so, he hadn't wanted to involve Edward in this world. Edward was above all of the pain and fighting. He was pure. Despite his faults, Edward was the purest thing in Jasper's life and he didn't want to spoil that.
But he knew there wasn't anything he could do to dissuade Edward from fighting for him. While Jasper knew he should be touched by that, it only upset him. If Edward was smart, he'd turn around and forget he'd ever met Jasper. But that wasn't something Edward would do for someone he loved. Jasper knew that.
So he watched helplessly as Edward zeroed in on Maria, barely holding back a scream when Edward lunged at her. Maria was taken by surprise. Everyone had been so focused on the fight with Jasper, Edward had slipped through unnoticed.
But Maria was quick and much more experienced at fighting other vampires than Edward was. Edward grabbed her around the neck and for a second it seemed like he could control the fight, but Maria recovered quickly and her instincts had her twisting around to try to grab Edward around the waist. Edward dodged out of the way and crouched into a low stance; Jasper saw the moment Edward's hunting instincts kicked in.
Jasper used every ounce of his energy to focus his thoughts for Edward's benefit. Knowing both Edward's and Maria's fighting tactics, he knew Maria, in her temper, would go for brute strength thinking Edward was just a pest to eliminate quickly. She was use to fighting, but it was mostly fighting newborns. Like Jasper had been, her ability to fight swiftly and gracefully was rusty.
Edward locked eyes with Jasper, letting him know that he understood. Maria growled and lunged at Edward, barely scraping his arm with her nails as he dodged out of the way. Maria grew frustrated quickly. Whenever she tried to catch Edward he managed to get away.
'Grab him,' she yelled to the surrounding vampires.
All at once, the vampires jumped to order. One managed to get its arm around Edward's leg, halting his escape. No matter how hard Edward tried to get from his grasp, he was stuck. Quickly, another vampire got behind him and managed to grab Edward around the throat. The pure strength of the vampire slowly crushed his windpipe, and had Edward been required to breathe he'd have lost consciousness quickly.
Maria was covered in cuts from all of Edward's small grazes, and her bottom lip was torn open, but she still had the energy to smirk and slowly walk towards Edward.
'Well, what do we have here?' she asked. 'I've never seen you before. Are you from a rival camp?'
Edward held her gaze, but he knew enough to not say anything. He tried to read her mind, but he couldn't get anything useful from her. She was confused about why he would be there at this time, but she obviously hadn't made the connection between him and Jasper. That was a good thing.
'Who do you belong to?' she asked again. When Edward didn't answer she slapped him across the face. It took everything in Jasper not to growl at that. He didn't know what he could do, but he knew he had to help Edward. It was impossible for Jasper to use his ability on this many people, even in his best health. And he couldn't decide what emotion he would need to use on Maria to make her leave them alone.
He was best at anger – in fact, anger was one of the few emotions he'd ever had to manipulate. Jealousy, sometimes, envy, occasionally. But anger was what he used first. He couldn't just manipulate an emotion on command. It took practice, and it helped if he identified strongly with the emotion. That was why anger had come so naturally to him.
He didn't know what he could do to make Maria leave them alone. He briefly considered trying to turn them on each other, but it wasn't precise enough and it was impossible for him to guarantee that they'd turn on each other without attacking Edward or him in the process.
His only hope was that he could calm everyone down. But even that was a ridiculous thought. How could everyone being calm allow them to simply walk out of there? What he really needed was for them to pass out, but that wasn't going to happen. He simply had to hope that calming everyone down and perhaps inflicting a bit of joy would do the trick.
He'd never affected calmness or joy before. He didn't even know if he could. But after watching Edward stare down Maria just for him, he knew he had to try.
Edward tried to contain his cries at the bite marks, but Jasper was thankful that Maria was still being 'generous' with her torture. He knew he still had some time before she really started to do some damage. She wanted Edward to be able to speak at the moment but in a few minutes she'd grow frustrated and stop care about finding out answers.
Jasper focused all of his energy on calming himself down. If he wasn't calm, he'd never be able to pass the emotion on to the people who mattered. He wouldn't let himself open his eyes to look at Edward and he ignored the cries for blood from the rest of the vampires. He made himself as calm as possible, just hoping it would be enough. Then he had to focus on the joy, thinking that random happiness would cause just enough confusion that they'd be able to get away before anyone figured out what was happening.
He tried to think of things that made him happy, but he could only come up with Edward. Edward was his only source of happiness, the only good thing in his life. And he didn't know what he'd do without him. In such a short amount of time Edward had become so important to him, and even though Jasper didn't understand it he knew it was real.
So Jasper did the only thing he could think of: he focused on Edward. He focused on every good thing Edward had ever done for him, every kind word, every confused feeling Edward had ever caused in him that Jasper didn't really understand. Everything.
He felt calmness and happiness come over him from his thoughts of Edward and focused on inflicting those feelings on everyone else. He broke concentration briefly when he heard Edward cry out, but he quickly refocused. He focused as hard as he could.
And he waited.
Edward tried not to cry out; he tried so hard, knowing that Jasper would be proud of him if he didn't. But he wasn't used to the pain. He'd had a few fights with vampires, but nothing like this. The centralised bites, purposefully placed where they'd hurt the most, made his entire body feel like it was on fire. Like every single fibre of his body was being simultaneously jabbed with millions of salt-covered needles and washed with fire. Coupled with Maria's slaps and blows, he wasn't sure how long he could last.
He looked over at Jasper hoping for strength, but didn't find what he was looking for. Jasper's eyes were closed and a look of intense concentration covered his face. He peaked into his mind just long enough to figure out what Jasper was trying to do. There was only one way he could help him, and that was to make sure he didn't break his concentration.
He tried; he really did try to keep quiet. And the one time he did scream he noticed Jasper's eyes flicker open for a moment, and he saw the terror in them. Jasper was terrified for him. He was terrified that something would happen to him. Edward should have been happy that Jasper cared so much, but he couldn't have cared less for he was equally as terrified on Jasper's behalf.
Edward opened his eyes in time to see Maria's sharped nail pierce into his cheek, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from making a noise.
'Where are you from? Who sent you? Are you from LaRue? Valez? Who the fuck sent you?' she screamed.
Edward squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to every deity that it would stop. He didn't want to feel the pain anymore. He loved Jasper more than anything, but even then he was wishing he was in Maine with Esme and Carlisle. Safe… he just wanted to be safe.
Edward didn't know how long he had his eyes shut, but they flew open when the minds around him seemed to quiet and shut off. He looked around and saw most of the vampires around him staring off as if in a daze. Several even had a small smile on their face. Maria was inches from him, but she no longer looked cruel and heartless. Instead, she almost looked relaxed and gentle.
'Edward.' He heard his name rasped and immediately looked to Jasper. Jasper was freed from the vampires holding him, but was still hunched over in pain and holding his side. 'We need to go now; I'm not sure how long I can keep this up.'
'Jasper…' Edward started, glancing around at everyone.
'Now,' Jasper demanded. 'I won't be able to run fast and we need to be as far away as possible when I let this go.'
That shocked Edward into motion. He took a step away from his captors. Their eyes followed him and it was obvious that they were aware he was there and that he was walking away. They just didn't care. Edward inched away without removing his eyes from Maria. He could see in her eyes and hear in her mind that she was trying to fight Jasper's ability. She knew exactly what was going on and she'd finally connected the dots between the two of them. The compulsion was too strong at the moment, but she was working hard to beat it. And when she did, she wasn't going to play any longer. Edward and Jasper had to get away or they would die.
Once he was out of arms reach, Edward rushed to Jasper's side and wrapped an arm around his waist.
'Let's go,' he said. He helped Jasper limp away from the crowd. Edward saw Jasper's eyes meet the eyes of another vampire for a moment and Edward heard the words of betrayal in his mind. But there wasn't enough time to focus on that.
Edward didn't stop to pick up his bag from outside the camp. He single-mindedly walked them to the edge of the forest. Jasper wasn't able to help much, and while Edward had his fair share of cuts, it was nothing compared to what Jasper had suffered.
When they reached the edge of the forest Edward propped Jasper up against a tree and knelt down next to him.
'How do you feel?'
'Like shit,' Jasper admitted. He leaned his head back against the trunk. 'I'm still holding on to the Emotions, but I don't know how much longer I can. We need to go farther away. If I drop it here they'll catch up with us.'
'I'm not sure how much farther we can go,' Edward confessed. 'I don't have that much strength, and neither do you. We need… we can't walk.'
Jasper sighed and looked out into the woods. It didn't seem fair that they'd get this far only to be caught at the border. He could feel his ability slipping and it took more effort to keep it going than before. He was about to close his eyes when he noticed a black colour peeking out from between the tree leaves. He looked closer and almost laughed at what he saw.
'There's a car,' he whispered.
'What?'
'There's a car over there. Someone must be around.'
Edward cast his mind around and found the thoughts of a single, early-morning park goer. He was a quarter-mile away, fishing at the lake and wouldn't return for several hours. Morals be damned, Edward heaved Jasper onto his feet and guided them as quickly as he could towards the car.
'Do you think you could start it?' Jasper asked.
'The driver left the key in the car,' Edward said. 'He's fishing by the lake.'
He leaned Jasper on the doorframe and looked into the car windows. The key was sitting between the seats and the window was open, so Edward reached into the car, grabbed the keys, and unlocked Jasper's door. After he helped Jasper in and shut the door he turned to him.
'Can you keep it going for just a few minutes longer? There's something I need to do.'
Jasper nodded wearily, finally closing his eyes and trying not to let the pain get the best of him. Edward locked the door and took the keys with him before running off to find the lone fisherman. He didn't want some poor innocent out in the middle of the woods when a herd of angry vampires came bounding out. It only took him five minutes to find him, knock him unconscious, carry his body and equipment back into the main square of town, steal some money from his pockets with the full intention of paying him back some day, and then contact the police about a false contamination in the park so the entire area would be closed off for several days.
He rushed back to Jasper and was glad to see that Jasper still had his look of concentration which meant they had more time. Without another word he started the car and drove as fast as he could away from that forest.
'Where did you go?' Jasper asked.
'I couldn't leave the guy there if Maria decides to search for us.'
'I'd be more surprised if she didn't.'
'Exactly. And then I called in a false contamination on the park so no one would be allowed in there for a few days. Humans shouldn't die just because Maria is mad.'
Jasper managed a chuckle and his head dropped to the side to look at Edward. 'Are you okay? I know you're hurt; it couldn't have been easy dragging me the whole way. Will you be okay to drive?'
'I'll be fine,' Edward insisted. 'You just keep it up as long as you can.'
Jasper nodded and settled into the chair. He closed his eyes but kept his head tilted towards Edward. When they reached the border of Texas and Louisiana, Jasper's eyes flew open and he let out a huge sigh.
'I lost it,' he muttered.
'That's fine, we're almost out of Texas, they'll never catch us now.'
Jasper stared at him and then turned to look out the window. 'I've never left Texas before,' he said, quietly. 'I never thought I'd get to.'
'Well we're heading to Louisiana right now. We'll cut up the East Coast and in a few days we should be with my family.'
'Where are we going?'
'Maine. It's at the northern tip of the East Coast,' he explained when Jasper's brow furrowed in confusion. He didn't think Jasper had too much knowledge of geography and what little he'd had as a human had probably been lost from years of disuse as a vampire. 'It'll take us a few days, but I'm going as fast as I can. We'll stop to rest eventually, but not for several states. We need to put more room between us.'
'I wish I could help but I never learned to drive.'
'Well I guess that's something I can teach you once we're all better,' Edward said with a smile. His stomach jumped a bit when Jasper smiled back at him.
As the miles slipped past, Edward could see Jasper visibly relaxing. They hit Georgia by nightfall and only then did Edward comfortable enough to stop. They needed petrol greatly and even though vampires were capable of staying in one place for hours they did, eventually, need to move.
Edward hardly noticed the time it took. He was too busy enjoying himself by watching Jasper. Jasper was like a little child, staring out the window as the world went past. He'd loved the French-style of New Orleans and gawked at the large plantations of the South. Edward couldn't wait to get him in the North where he could experience the charm of New England or the mansions of Newport. He knew they'd have to stay out of sight for some time while Jasper adjusted to an all animal diet, but at the first opportunity he vowed that he would take Jasper to New York. He couldn't wait to see Jasper's reaction to so dense a city.
Their drive was relatively quiet with only a few questions asked between them. They both were concerned with healing, which, thanks to their vampire bodies and a quick stop in a forest for a hunt, were both fully healed by the time they hit Massachusetts.
And by Connecticut Jasper was mentally and physically healed enough to have a conversation.
When they drove over the border of Maine everything changed. Jasper grew quiet and introspective and the closer they got to Jonesport, the more the tension in the car grew.
'Are you alright,' Edward finally asked.
Jasper didn't say anything for a few minutes before he turned to look out the window. Edward understood – Jasper didn't want him to see his emotions. It hurt Edward, but he understood why he did it.
'What if they don't like me,' he asked.
'It's not going to happen,' Edward insisted. 'You make me happy and there is nothing my parents want more in the world than for me to be happy.'
'But I'm the last person in the world who should make you happy,' Jasper protested. 'I'm a monster. Because of me you got hurt – tortured! Just look at me.' He thrust out his arm so Edward could see the bite marks and scars that littered his skin, both old and new.
Edward covered his arm with his hand, purposely letting his sleeve drag up so his own scars were exposed.
'I regret nothing, Jasper. I'd fight for you again if I had to. But it's over now. You're finally free. And I'm going to show you that you are not a monster. You are better than Maria and you're certainly better than what she tried to make you become. And I'm proud of who you've become. You may have been lost when I first met you, but so was I. And together we'll find our way. That is who my parents will see because that is who you are.'
'Are you sure?' Jasper asked.
'I'm surer of this than of anything else.'
And he was. Edward had absolutely no doubts that Jasper would fit in with Carlisle and Esme. Jasper belonged in their family. Jasper belonged to him.
Edward couldn't contain his excitement as he drove up the long driveway and the moment he caught sight of the small Cape Cod style house overlooking the sea he cut the engine without even bothering to get all of the way up the drive. He ran towards the house, pausing only long enough to pull Jasper from his seat and drag him behind him. When he was several feet away from the house the door opened and Esme stepped out onto the front porch. Edward didn't stop – he caught her up in his arms and swore that he'd never let her go.
He saw Carlisle stop in the door frame, he heard talking, and he could still feel Jasper's hand clasped tightly with his. But none of that really registered. He could only think one thing: he was finally home.
