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Thanks so much for all the kind reviews! I always enjoy hearing good stuff about what I write and it's just so nice that everyone is liking the story so far. Thanks again! And here's chapter eight!

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Long Road to Ruin
Chapter Eight: Loopholes



Jasper.

"Hey."

I turned slowly around, my tennis shoes squeaking slightly on the tiled floor of the hallway. The bell to signify break had just rang, and I was headed to the snack stand to get a bag of chips or some kind of junk food that could soothe my cravings right now. I wasn't expecting to be talked to by Edward Cullen, however, and it caught me completely off guard.

"Oh, hey, Eddie." I grinned lazily at him.

He laughed in response to that, but the gesture didn't touch his eyes. They were darker than normal, and idly I wondered why they were so. Edward gave me a strange look with a quirked bronze brow, and then picked up his graceful pace to match mine, so we walked side by side…with absolutely everyone watching.

Great.

I sighed and looked around, my brown eyes studying everyone's reactions. Lauren looked particularly shocked that I was walking with most possibly the most attractive guy in school - well, at least one of the most attractive, since…well…

I shook my head, my unruly blonde locks flying around my face. What kind of moron are you? Calling guys attractive. Weirdo! Don't ever think that again!

I heard soft chuckling beside me and looked to find the bronze haired man smiling crookedly at something. I just couldn't be certain what it was. It was strange, this guy laughing in my presence every time I talked to him. What was the deal? Did I look funny or something? Was I that incredibly bad looking in his presence that the difference was comical?

Ugh. I groaned, running a hand through my honey colored locks and slumped my shoulders in a relaxed manner.

Not that I thought I was bad looking, no. I usually thought I was pretty okay. I wasn't conceited, but I wasn't totally self-deprecating anyway. But next to Edward I probably looked like…well, something normal next to something artfully handsome.

Wow, I need to get a life.

Again, Edward's chuckles met my ears and I was instantly on guard. What did he want anyway?

"I wanted to ask you about your intentions."

I blinked, confused, "Uh…what? With you?"

This only made Edward laugh louder, "Sure. Yes, what are you intentions with me?"

"I planned on taking you out to dinner and a movie, and then we could go back to my place…"

"Stop there." Edward said, holding up a deathly pale hand, and I realized that he was enjoying my attempt at joking, "I'm not that easy. Sex on the first date? Uh, no."

I threw my head back and laughed. Never did it cross my mind that the new "brooding hunk of Forks High" could have a sense of humor.

We continued to walk the distance to third period, which he had with me, along with his other family. That was yet another class I had with Bella, and I couldn't help but feel a bit excited over it. Third hour was science with Mrs. Glenn, and though I liked science, I hadn't been able to concentrate ever since the Cullens came to Forks.

"I was actually talking about your intentions with Bella."

My steps stuttered, and I almost tripped over my own feet, but I gathered myself, righting my body and then stopped, turning my head to gaze into his oddly dark eyes, "What are you talking about?"

"Exactly what I just said."

His eyes were intense, seeming to burn holes into my own. I just stared, dumbfounded, as if what he just said was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

And in a way, it was. Because, well, Bella, no matter what kind of interactions we have had before, most likely would never be attracted to me. Though I considered myself a good enough looking guy, she was…well, to be absolutely blunt, hot. No, more than hot, the adjective to describe her looks was something that probably hadn't been invented yet. Either that or I was even more stupid than I originally thought.

The likes of her would most likely not even talk to me in normal circumstances, but there was something about her that drew me to her, and I thought that maybe she felt the same way. It was most likely our past, and the way that she saved me when I was just a little child. I would like to think that she remembered that she had saved a little blonde boy one day, but I was faced with the fact that she was probably not as obsessive over that one little moment in time as I was.

"Listen," I gazed at him as casually as I could muster, "I really don't have any intentions with her. We've just talked. And I doubt it will be more than that…"

Edward blinked, his eyes suddenly turning sympathetic, and he placed a hand on my shoulder, carefully, as if afraid his touch could hurt me. I idly wondered if his skin would hurt me like Emmett's had when I punched him, or when Bella's arm wrapped like a steel girder around my waist. I felt the bruise from the latter encounter pulse as if in response to my thoughts about it.

Yes, it was true. The day after my little encounter with Bella at the graveyard, I woke up with a nasty bruise circling around the front of my stomach and ending where my back began. It was just the shape and width of her slender arm as well. So now I had the one on my knuckles, which was slowly beginning to yellow and heal, and the new purpling one on my stomach to match. I needed to remind myself to never actually hit a Cullen with the intent to hurt them. I'd probably end up getting sent to the hospital.

I saw the corners of Edward's mouth turn upward in an all-knowing smile. I hated this. Why does it seem like this guy knows everything? I thought, clenching my fists and wincing as the bruise on my knuckles gave me a slight stab of pain.

Edward just looked at me, as if answering, Because I do.

Shaking my head once more, I looked at Edward, who had started walking once more. I jogged two steps until I was caught up with him. The breath came easily out between my lips, "Why do you want to know of…my intentions?"

It was Edward's turn to look taken off guard, though he didn't stumble like I had. If anything, his pace was even more graceful, though I was sure that wasn't possible.

"Bella is…" Edward trailed off, a wry smile tugging at his mouth, "my sister. And I don't want any harm to befall her. Do you understand?"

I looked at him, all seriousness, "I'd never hurt her."

And though I hadn't even known her all that long, I knew that my words were nothing but the truth. I would never do anything to hurt Bella, to cause her pain. I didn't think I was capable of doing such.

Apparently, Edward did, "Not intentionally, of course. But…there is a chance that you could cause harm to come to yourself if you hang around us. Particularly Bella. Because she already has a bit of attachment to you. I'm no mind reader," He grinned as soon as he said those last two words, "but I know my sister. And if anything were to happen to you…she wouldn't be able to forgive herself."

"Are you…telling me to stay away from her?" I was incredulous. Why was Edward telling me this? It made no sense. I had done nothing to receive this from him. I hadn't made Bella cry, had I? I hadn't hurt her feelings, right?

Suddenly, a thought struck upon me, and Edward seemed privy to it before I even voiced it, "Did I hurt her feelings by snapping at Lauren in second hour? I don't see why…I mean, Lauren was saying nasty stuff about her and - "

"No." Edward said, smiling warmly, "She's actually very flattered that you would do that for her. Chivalry never goes out of style, after all."

"And about Jessica - "

"No, she's happy about that, actually." Edward said, again the warm smile dispersed any iciness that had been there before, "Bella told me that she was happy for that because you were so nice about it. And, plus, she's going to be at the dance as well. Strange, she usually hates dances."

I felt my heart stutter and then stop for a few seconds, before picking up again at full force. Bella hated dances? And yet she was going? A part of me wished it was because of me, but I knew that to think that would make me get to arrogant, and then it would make the disappointment even worse when I learned that Bella actually wanted to date Mike or whoever.

I squinted my eyes shut. Since when did I care who Bella dated? She could date anyone, for all I cared! Wasn't my business.

Denial, denial. A nagging voice spoke up in my head.

"Ugh." I groaned aloud, and started to massaged my temples with the pads of my index fingers.

"You alright?" Edward asked, looking concernedly at me.

"Fine." I muttered between clenched teeth. I had a very bad headache all of a sudden, and I wasn't sure why. Probably thinking too much. Analyzing the situation never was my strong suit.

"You sure? The nurse probably has some medicine."

"I'm good." I reassured him, grinning as I ground my teeth.

I could almost feel the concern radiating off of him in waves. The intensity of it made me wince slightly as the sudden panging in my head increased. I groaned as Edward's dark gold eyes stared at me. Strange, they seemed to be getting darker and darker as the conversation went on.

The emotion in his eyes grew more and more pronounced.

"Edward?" A light, lilting voice, like bells, sounded from beside us.

Bella. I thought, and even the sound of that reeked of hopefulness.

"Oh, Bella." Edward said, looking to her with a charming smile. "Headed to class?"

"Yeah," Bella said, "Alice and Rose ditched me. So I decided to walk by myself. Then I saw you two…" She trailed off as she saw my face, twisted in pain, "Are you alright, Jasper?"

"Headache." Both Edward and myself said in unison.

Bella's honey golden eyes turned worried as she looked at me. She reached up and placed her pale hand against my forehead. The utter coolness of it made me shiver.

"Aw, I'm sorry," Bella said, genuinely, her golden eyes locking with mine, and I couldn't find the will to look away like I normally did. Instead, a flush spread across my cheeks - a rather non-masculine thing to do, I might add - and I laughed nervously. Why was it that when I was just in her presence like this it was a chore for me to function normally?

She moved her hand, and I immediately felt a sense of loss. I wanted desperately for her to keep her hand there. But, then again, that was just wishful thinking, because I knew that wasn't going to happen. Not with the strange way she distanced herself, or with the way Edward was suddenly staring at her like she had grown an extra head. I looked quizzically back and forth between the bronze haired man and the gorgeous brunette in front of me with nothing but confusion swirling around inside my head.

"Do you feel at least a little better?" Bella asked me, cocking her head to the side in the most cute manner.

"Y-Yeah," I replied, somewhat shakily. It was true that the mysterious headache vanished just as it came. It was strange. Not that I had never gotten a headache before - most of the time they came and went like normal people have, but other times, when I felt unusually overwhelmed, I got them.

Then I felt it.

What had overwhelmed me to the point head splitting pain wasn't my analyzing anything too much.

The feelings of sinister energy - I don't know how to describe it, but I felt them, much like I had all those other times - that I had encountered before were locked on me, like a million razor sharp daggers, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike and cripple me.

I shuddered with the feelings. They weren't as intense as before, but the lingering pain of my headache was resurging, and I groaned. "Great…"

"What is it?" Bella was suddenly on guard, which was odd. What did she have to be on guard about? Her shoulders were tense and her eyes were focused, as if she were looking for something I couldn't see yet.

"Nothing…" I insisted, "My head, is all. I'll go get some medicine from the office. No worries." I gave Bella a smile that I hoped was genuine when all I could think about was her face, worried and protective, and the fact that the sinister feeling only kept intensifying with each passing second.

Bella looked at me with increasing worry and I waved my hand, as if to beckon her to go to class. She turned her head and glanced at Edward with a pleading glance. He nodded, and then Bella turned to me, "I'll walk with you."

"Oh, no, you don't have to. Don't bother yourself with me."

"But I want to walk with you."

Bella's voice sounded so sure, so determined, that it was hard to refuse her. Not to mention the fact that all my normal, rational brain functions went out the door as soon as she turned her dark gaze on me. Huh. Her eyes seem darker in color today too…More black than anything. I noted as I gazed into them.

"Alright," I resigned, "Come on."

Though I tried my best to sound nonchalant and maybe even a little bored, it didn't come off as such. I ended up sounding like a giddy little kid, and that was wholly embarrassing.

I walked down the hall to the office just as the tardy bell rang. Great. Oh, well, maybe Mrs. Glenn would give us a pass since we were so early in the school year, and since I had a killer headache that was just starting to kick back up again. Not to mention that strange, creepy feeling I was starting to get lately, as if I was being watched by something - or someone. I couldn't be sure.

My most common explanation would be that I was crazy. Even now, I wasn't so sure that would be a valid excuse. I had thought I was insane when I had seen Bella for the first time, and insisted she was real. And here she was, walking next to me. There was some truth in what I saw, though I didn't know the whole truth yet, I had to admit.

But I wondered if there was more to my sudden headache and the eerie feelings I received than I thought. Maybe they were all more based on facts than I originally thought.

I inhaled deeply as I turned the final corner to the principal's office. I couldn't even make out Bella's footfalls, so I turned around only to see that she was following behind me. Odd. She hadn't made a sound since we started walking. I might as well have been walking by myself for all the noise I heard from her.

"Something wrong?" The tense tone of Bella's voice signaled that there should be something wrong, but I wasn't so sure.

"No, I just…I thought you had ditched me. You're so quiet."

"Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I just didn't hear any footsteps or anything."

The look on Bella's face was shocked, as if she couldn't comprehend how I realized that. She said nothing, though.

So, I decided, why the hell not? And asked her another question.

"Do y'all wear contacts or something?"

Again, she was caught up short. "Wh-What do you mean?"

"Maybe it's just me, but your eyes look different today. They're darker…black."

Her onyx eyes widened in shock, as if she was surprised by my perceptiveness.

"Uh," Bella stuttered, her tinkling voice unsure as to how to react to my sudden accusation. "Yeah. Contacts. I have dark contacts."

Something about her answer didn't sit well with me. It felt like she was just agreeing with me so she'd have an excuse for the way her eyes were.

"Really? Ah, I really like your eyes naturally…you know, the gold. They're pretty."

Bella seemed to inhale shakily for once and she averted her eyes. It seemed odd, on her features I would've expected a blush or some kind of color, but not even the faintest of pink graced her cheeks. It was…strange, to say the least. Maybe she just wasn't a blushing person, but a part of me seriously doubted that.

"Thanks." Was all she said.

I grinned at her and again, that strange she-should-be-blushing look crossed her face.

I walked into the office, requested some Tylenol, which the receptionist gave me gladly. I smiled at her too and, unlike Bella, she actually blushed despite herself.

Leaving the office, I walked to the water fountain, with Bella still following me, but this time she was a little closer to my side. I popped the pills in my mouth and swallowed some water, feeling the caplets make their way down my throat.

I straightened myself up and looked at Bella, "Guess we should get to class."

"Yeah. Guess so."

She still looked a bit shaken from my inquiry about her eyes. Which was odd. Not even when she was being badmouthed by Lauren did she seem so shaken and surprised. I wondered what was going through her head.

"The first football game is in two weeks?"

This time it was my turn to act shocked, "Uh, yeah. Why?"

"Well, I wanted to come watch you play." Bella said cheerfully, but the tinge of shock and awe brought on by my comments still hadn't left her eyes.

I felt the blush creep onto my cheeks as I stared at her incredulously. She sure didn't look like a sports person.

"That's a very nice thing of you to do…" I trailed off, not quite sure what else to say.

Bella's lips twisted into a smirk, "Yeah, well, I wanted to see if you are as good as people say you are."

I blinked, "What?"

"You're a very popular topic of conversation, Jasper." I shuddered at the way she caressed my name with her tinkling voice, "And apparently, you're quite the football player. And basketball, too, if I'm not mistaken."

I nodded, "Yeah…"

Bella's eyes sparked with familiarity, but somehow I couldn't figure where that stemmed from, "Baseball?"

Her dark orbs were alight with amusement, and I could only sit there and wonder where that came from. Instead of asking her what had her so light hearted, I said, "Yeah. Baseball too."

The brunette laughed, and the sound of it was like tinkling glass, "Maybe you could play with my family sometime. We're all big baseball fans."

"Really?" I lit up. "What's your favorite team?"

Bella's face turned even more comical, "Oh, no. We're more players than we are watchers. Though you can say different for Emmett and Edward. They both like to watch and play."

I suddenly remembered the muscular, curly haired man that had given me the bruise on my knuckles. He seemed more of a football player or a wrestler or something more physical than baseball, but then as I thought about it, he looked like one of those all-around athletes that could basically do anything.

But then…wouldn't that contradict with what he told me? About the injury that made him not able to play football? I furrowed my brow and thought hard about it. Maybe that injury didn't apply to baseball, but somehow that didn't sit well with me.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I quickly supplied the answer she most likely wanted to hear. I knew she didn't want to be surprised any more today by my intuitive leaps. I sure as hell was surprised that I was having them. "We should probably get to class."

Bella nodded in agreement, and now she walked beside me, rather than just off to the side and behind me. It was nice, but I could practically feel her confusion in the air. The sinister feeling I kept being encountered with was gone for now. I knew that, in the pit of my stomach, that it wouldn't be gone for long. It seemed like I was always feeling like I was being watched lately, though I didn't know why.

Suddenly, being insane seemed a very simple solution to all the things that had been happening.

"Has anything weird happened to you lately?" Bella's voice, like the sound of church bells, stirred me from my thoughts.

I blinked, and looked at her. The expression she wore was fierce, and I cocked my head to the side, "No."

I lied straight to her face, and a part of me felt bad for it, but the other part was only interested in protecting her. After what Edward had said before, I was suddenly worried as to what I could possibly do to her, the woman who had saved me when I was but a child from a cougar. The woman who hadn't aged since. The woman whose skin was hard like a rock, cold like ice. The woman whose eyes changed colors, and though she gave me an explanation, I highly doubted she wore contacts for some reason.

She exhaled shakily and placed a hand on my shoulders in comfort, "You can tell me. Remember? If anything weird starts to happen - "

The weight of her icy hand felt odd. The coolness of her skin seeped through my shirt, my skin, and seemed to go deep into my bones, but with that touch also brought an electric sensation that sizzled throughout me along with the cold.

"Just remember you can tell me whatever's bothering you. Any time. I'll be here."

I reached up and took her hand with my own. The cold was even more profound on the sensitive skin of my fingertips, and now that I had a good feel of her hand, it was also hard like marble. She looked shocked as I stared into her coal black eyes, "I know." I said, the thickness of my accent particularly noticeable, "And, trust me, it's strange that you care so much when we barely know each other. But I deeply appreciate it. Everything, Bella."

She gulped, and I felt her freezing fingers tighten around my hand, inflicting more of the burn with them.

Though I told her that I didn't see how she cared so much when we barely knew each other, I felt the same way. There was an inexplicable attraction I had to her. Not just for her looks or due to the fact that I was one hundred percent positive that she was the woman who saved me. I felt drawn to her, like a moth to a flame.

She just nodded before smiling bitterly and saying, "And it's strange that you care so much about me when you hardly know me."

My heart stuttered in my chest.

She released my hand, and I felt suddenly saddened that she had. I missed her touch, however unnaturally cold and hard it had been, but the tingle it had brought on still remained in my blood.

She gave me a smile and walked ahead of me, her mahogany hair swinging around her lower back in soft waves, "Let's go to class, Jasper."

Again, the feeling of her saying my name spurred a deep reaction inside me. I felt a chill go up and down my spine, and the tingling feeling increased within my body.

"Yeah." I said, somewhat timidly as I followed her to class.

And, in the pit of my stomach, I felt like something important was about to go down.

I just didn't know what.


End Chapter Eight.

And here's the next chapter! I'm glad I got it done today. Whew. I was planning on getting this one done as soon as I could but I wasn't sure where it was going, but then everything planned itself out like it usually does. Haha.

Anyway, I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to update again. I start college this coming Monday. On the 17th. Should be interesting. But I'm not sure I'll have time to update a lot. I hope I'll have time, because I have a lot of great ideas for this story and I can't wait to write them! (happy birthday dad, too, btw lol).

Let's see…thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. I appreciate it very much and I am so glad that everyone likes the story so far! Things are about to kick up most definitely, so I hope y'all continue reading. Please review. It would be very nice!

Thanks again!