Some Say Ice

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(Second)

I have very little left of my human life, a statement that works both metaphorically and physically. There are no watercolor memories of the people who raised me or the people I loved, no déjà vu snapshots of places I've been to or things that I've seen. I only have the image of Maria turning back to look at me, a memory of blistering fire in my veins, and a battered old wristwatch with an inscription on the back that I don't understand. Unlike my clothing (and, let's be honest, my general sense of identity) for some reason Maria chose not to strip me of the watch. Maybe she didn't notice it, or maybe she thought it of little consequence, but either way, I kept it then, and I still keep it now. However ordinary, the smooth glass face and ticking hands make me feel as if someone must have loved me once. At some point, in some not too distant past, I mattered.

While the two testosterone-overloaded 'heroes' of the veggie coven run off after Maria, I remain standing where I am, and glance down at this watch, counting down the number of minutes with a shake of my head. Well, that was dumb, I think plainly, well aware of how much they'll regret this particular act of valor. "That's all?" I ask out loud, directing my question to the blond patriarch. "You're not sending anyone else? Just those two? After Maria?"

He glances at me sideways. "Yes."

"After Maria?" I clarify, speaking to him as if he's a very small, unintelligent child who'd been kicked in the head by a mule. He nods. "Well," I say coldly. "I hope you've said your goodbyes then."

I throw this casual threat out there like a fishing line and wait. Every single one of them stiffens at my words, the blonde girl and Jasper's Whitlock's mate both edging into something close to panic. Their supposed leader frowns, and I critically note the differences between him and Maria. Maria, as a leader, has never been calm, caring, or patient. If I made a vague and unsubstantiated warning like that in her presence, she would have immediately demanded to know what I meant, and threatened, coerced, and tortured until I revealed the truth. This strange, unsettling man just places his hands in his coat pockets and stares at me in disapproval.

"I appreciate your concern, but I don't think it will come to that," he says.

I raise an eyebrow doubtfully. Maria is right — the animal-diet has obviously made these already-abnormal vampires go soft. All for the best, I suppose. Their lenience would certainly made my own job easier. Nonchalant and relaxed, as if I haven't a care in the world, I stride toward the snow-covered porch and gingerly ease the canvas knapsack off my shoulders. I recline on the wooden swing, and rock back and forth on my heels. Everyone except for Jasper's little mate watches me like a hawk; her strange yellow eyes are blank and motionless, two cat-eye marbles staring off into the distance. "I could be wrong, of course," I say cheerfully. "I wasn't aware that you'd already trained them to fight an army. How clever of you."

The first tinge of alarm creeps into the patriarch's features. "What?" he whispers.

I sigh. "Look, Carlisle, right?" he nods, and I fold arms behind my head. "To be perfectly honest, Maria doesn't keep me in the loop about much of anything. Whatever she's planning, she tends to keep to herself. But I can tell you right now— she isn't like anyone you've ever dealt with before. She fights dirty," I inform him plainly. "There is no way she would lead the famous Jasper Whitlock into a trap unless she had some serious backup. She's smarter than that, I assure you. I'd be shocked if she didn't have an army of just-created, barely containable newborns down there that she's getting ready to let loose on Calgary."

The females shoot each other looks behind Carlisle's back. "And she wouldn't inform you of this grand plan?" one of them asks.

I visibly scoff. "As if she trusts me. Maria works alone."

Much to her detriment. If she had trusted me in New Orleans, we wouldn't be in this mess right now. Actually, if she had trusted me at all, ever, if she valued me even in the slightest, I wouldn't be forced to take such desperate measures against her now. I wouldn't be reduced to this mundane act of ugly, heartless revenge. I don't care what lies come out of her pretty mouth, or what stories she likes to spin when she has me in her bed, the truth of the matter is that she underestimated me, betrayed me, and trussed me up like a lamb for slaughter. And no one —no one— stabs me in the back and lives to tell the tale. Not even the beautiful, beguiling Maria.

I glance down at my wristwatch again. When the little hand ticks to the six, Jasper's mate snaps back to consciousness with a sharp narrowing of her eyes. I very nearly shudder — her fluctuating presence is disturbing to say the least. She reminds me of a wind-up toy — only talking and moving as long as the mechanism lasts, then falling to absolute nothingness until someone winds the crank again. She is there, and she is not there, and when she disappears I wonder where her mind has gone to, what she's seeing behind that blank-eyed stare. I know now that Maria underestimated her too, but I plan on keeping this precious bit of information to myself.

"This can't be right," she says after a moment. "If there was an army, Edward would have known."

"The mind-reader?" I ask, slowly and pointedly. I have to stop myself from getting giddy at the way their faces fall. A gurgle of laughter hangs at the back of my throat. "Check your crystal ball again, honey, and give Maria a little credit. She may be thoroughly unpleasant, but she's also not someone you want to underestimate."

Abruptly, a tremendous boom roars through the silence, shaking the ground and echoing through the valley.

Every member of the coven whirls around to see a dome of flames glowing in the downtown area of Calgary, so bright against the white of the snow that it feels like a forked-spear being shoved into my eyeballs. The fire rolls back into itself with another shaking boom, and a dragon-curl of smoke rises into the air, thick black and ugly. Half a second later, another blast rocks the snow beneath our feet, and two blocks of city apartments go up in flames. Sirens begin to wail in the distance just as another building explodes, sending shrapnel ricocheting across an iced-over river and into a what looks like a schoolyard. I almost laugh — that last one was totally an accident. The timing is so impeccable that I feel like a vaudeville comedy act.

I learn against the porch rail, and spread my hands out as if to say, "I told you so."

I can practically smell their terror — it rises into the air like a curl of smoke, vividly apparent against the winter-white sky. My vague threat of danger just became serious, and none of these bloodless softies is prepared to deal with this kind of thing. The quieter female looks at the patriarch with urgency, touching his arm. "Carlisle?"

Carlisle looks down for a long moment, looking very much as if he wished the following decisions didn't have to be his. I feel no sympathy for him. If Maria were in his shoes, she would have sent an army down ten minutes ago. "Esme, Rosalie, go after the boys," he finally orders, brushing his lips against the quiet one's forehead emotionally. "We'll be right behind you."

The two of them take off immediately, sprinting into the nearby trees like a pair of gazelles, but when Jasper's mate moves forward to follow, the patriarch snags her by the arm. Her eyes blaze with anger, and for a second I'm sure she's going to fight him like she did earlier. But she presses her lips together instead and glowers at me as if this is all my fault. Carlisle, too, rounds on rounds on me like an angry badger and grabs the collar of my shirt. His voice raises to a decibel level I didn't even know his vocal cords were capable of. "What else do you know?!" he demands.

I nearly sneer at his pathetic attempt at intimidation. Oh, I'm shaking. Just trembling. The combined powers of your sweater vest and matching scarf are far too much for me to overcome! Watch, as I cower before you, oh mighty gelled one! But I don't have time for his swaggering threats and weak interrogations. Another glance at my wristwatch tells me I only have sixty seconds — I cut this far closer than I would have liked. I throw my shoulders back, take a deep breath, and prepare to put on the performance of a lifetime.

I rip away from him dramatically, and throw my head into my hands like a man fiercely battling against his conscience. Keenly aware of their reaction to this undoubtedly unexpected outburst, I catapult myself off the porch and pace to the far corner of the yard, where I fall to my knees as if in utter agony and beat my hands against the snow. "You don't understand!" I yell out emotionally, even as I practically quake with mirth. From the other side of the yard they stare at me in absolute shock. "You have no idea what I've been through!"

A strange, frantic noise starts ringing from inside the house — a telephone. It startles me at first; I flinch noticeably, but the patriarch only sighs. "That's probably the hospital."

Jasper's mate follows me cautiously during my melodramatic tirade; clearly she doesn't trust me to leave her sight. She treads through the snow as delicately as a fawn approaching an open meadow and hovers midway between the house and my spasmodic form. But Carlisle stays put by the porch — torn between answering the phone and continuing the Spanish Inquisition. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs again, a man clearly exasperated with his current station in life. "What am I going to do with you?" he asks out loud. "I can't trust you. I can't leave you here. I can't take you with us. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with you."

My hands are clenching the snow in front of me, and my wristwatch glints in the weak winter light, counting down ten, nine, eight, seven.... "Oh, at this point, I don't think it really matters."

The phone continues to ring. "I have to get that," the patriarch finally says. "Alice, watch him."

My head snaps up. No! He isn't actually going inside the house, is he? I very nearly cackle with glee as he turns and jogs up the porch steps. He is! He's actually going in! How strange fate is, how diabolical!

It feels like one of those capricious moments of divine intervention — the same as when Maria turned around to stare at me, her glinting scarlet eyes locking on mine with a jolt of recognition and ownership that I can't seem to banish from my memory the way I've managed to banish everything else. The memory of that moment: her smile, the lashes against her cheeks, a white flash of teeth, clings to me stubbornly, an angel and a demon battling it out on either shoulder.

Tick... tick... tick....

***

Because my eyes are already locked on Second in evaluation, I know that something isn't right. There is a spark of malice in his expression, a gleam of misplaced and sudden excitement that doesn't fit the situation. In less than half a second, my mind assembles the seemingly unrelated fragments: Second's animated eyes, the glint of a wristwatch, Carlisle's quick strides into the house, the abandoned canvas knapsack on the porch, a far-away mechanical ticking. My mind sinks away from the present, and when the future flashes before me like a firestorm, I whirl around instantly and scream so loudly that my voice cracks.

"CARLISLE, NO!"

His hand is just turning the doorknob when a final tick sounds. The porch, the house, my entire world, explodes into a ball of flame. Orange light consumes me, rakes against my face like a claw, swipes me backwards off my feet. One minute I am staring in dumbstruck horror, the next I am flying through the air. A roar tumbles over me, the sound itself a living entity, shooting through me as my body flips and the sky spins and turns black. I smash into a nearby tree like a ragdoll, shaking down a rain of snow and branches. Shrapnel knifes into the ground beside me, burning splinters of wood and metal that sink into the snow and arrow sharply into the tree.

The world shimmers, and the ringing in my ears is so loud that I can't hear anything but my own shell-shocked breathing. Everything tilts in slow motion, and the ground slides away from me, ice crystals flickering in time with the leaping flames. I think I say Carlisle's name again, but I can't hear it over the ringing — my hand reaches out toward the heat of the flames as if I could help him somehow, some way. Then a jerking sensation makes the trees whirl past me in a frenzy, and in my buzzing ears a voice that sounds like gibberish is chanting the same phrase over and over again: "come on, come on, come on."

I realize slowly, furiously, that Second is dragging me stumbling over the snow, his thin fingers clamped onto my arm, ash brushed across both his cheeks. A smug, self-satisfied ghost of a smile hovers at the corners of his mouth.

"Get your hands off me," I hiss through clenched teeth, surprised at how guttural and terrifying my own voice sounds.

Second halts, and the satisfied look on his face vanishes. He grabs me again, harshly, this time by the throat, and looks me dead in the eye with an expression that chills me to the bone. There is nothing casual or cavalier about this man, nothing amused or playful. He is all murder and coldness — no one's pawn, no one's inconsequential playmate. Beneath the dark locks of hair and slashing brows, his eyes are like chips of ice. "Really?" he asks evenly. "You want to make this difficult?"

I look ahead quickly, evaluating my two options. If I struggle with Second now and attempt to fight him off, we will still be here when Esme and Rosalie come running back. They are both strong and capable fighters but Second is a well-trained, hardened killer. He will tear them apart in seconds. And, even the hazy uncertain vision of this shatters me — crushing my already-broken heart to fragments of dust. I can't, won't, let that happen. Steeling myself, I move onward to the only the other option: surrender. It doesn't matter what vision this choice invokes. I had no delusions about the fact that I would die. But... right or wrong, my own life is not worth the lives of two people I love.

"Fine," I say coldly.

"Excellent choice." Second releases my neck and evaluates me for a moment, studying my eyes intently. I know then that he is aware of my talent, or at least has a general idea of what I'm capable of, but he keeps his silence. And all around us, the snow begins to fall even harder than before, so thickly that I can no longer see the trees three feet in front of us. Behind us, the staggered blue imprints of my footsteps are filling with white, erasing my trail as easily as if I had never existed at all. Second seizes me by the arm again, clamping onto me like a pair of handcuffs, and starts to jog. "How fast can you run?"

"Fast," I snarl.

"Good," he says, bursting into a full-on sprint and dragging me along with him. "Try to keep up."

I turn back only once, just in time to see the Cullen house — my home, my sanctuary, my life of peace and safety, collapse in an explosion of flames. Tilted sideways and glinting orange, the attic window disappears behind a veil of smoke. Then I turn my back on it all and face the future again, with the fire hot against my back, a burning funeral pyre that seems to swallow everything whole, even me. My throat works in despair, and I have to bite my lip to keep from falling apart, to keep from edging into the black maw of insanity. It is Middlebury all over again: life slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, faster and faster until there is nothing left.

I wonder idly if this was the plan all along — not just Maria's plan, but Fate's plan as well: to dangle something before me so precious, so unbearably perfect, only to snatch it away.

The trees slide past me in a blur of color. I know I'm moving, I know I'm running, but I feel nothing. I see nothing. I am nothing. Not without Jasper, not without my family. I reach out to them in visions, and get solid, unchanging images that make my heart ache with longing: Esme and Rosalie gasping in horror at the burning house, Carlisle being pulled from the wreckage, all three of them racing through the debris calling out my name. I want to see Jasper the most, but I don't dare search for him, not even in visions. If I saw him now, all of my resolve would crumble. If I saw him now, I would only want to go back.

After what seems like hours, Second finally stops and releases me. But instead of trying to escape, I only stare around numbly, a prisoner within my own body. Is this where he will kill me? I wonder in detachment. Here, miles away from everyone I love? In a place were no one will ever find me? We are in a round clearing, and the bows of the trees above us are singed black and naked of pine needles, ominous charred claws that reach down at me. But Second, my would-be executioner, seems unconcerned with my fate. Ignoring me steadily, he swivels back and forth as if searching for something, bends down to a specific spot near the base of a tree, and starts digging in the snow like a burrowing animal.

Is he crazy? I wonder, watching him throw the excess snow behind him in a huge pile that nearly reaches my hip. Am I crazy? I can see no logic behind this frantic digging, no reason. It just further muddles the irrational strands of thought in my mind. Like blowing up a house, or making a heartless murderer out of a man who just wanted to live in peace. Nonsensical, all of it. Absurd.

Second reaches the frozen dirt beneath the snow and keeps digging, more excitedly now, his marble fingers working through the solid mud until color is revealed beneath — a scrap of dirty fabric. He pulls the bundle out carefully and unfolds it, staring at something wrapped within. For one wild moment I think it is a baby, from the tender way he holds it against his chest. But there is no heartbeat, and no living thing exists beneath the folds — just a pile of money.

"What is that?" I ask dully. Nothing makes sense anymore, nothing seems right. Nothing seems real. My own voice echoes in my ears like a stranger's.

He grins back at me. "$750,000."

Without even asking my permission, he takes out the stacks of bills and begins stuffing them in the pockets of my winter coat. The money smells like smoke and burnt spices, and it feels heavy on either side of me, weighted down with meaning and betrayal. I want to stop him, but for some reason neither my hands nor my mouth seems to work. I can only watch in numb detachment as he readjusts the bills so that it looks like my coat is just heavily-lined and not weighted down with what appears to be stolen money. "Hold onto that for me, would you, doll?" he asks merrily. "And maybe keep it hush-hush for awhile? Thanks."

Then he grabs onto my arm again, and once more takes off into the snow at a hard run.

We fly over a low ridge of hills and dash up a mountainside without pausing, the wind blowing so hard against us that I nearly topple backwards. I feel entombed in this world of white uncertainty, wrapped in icy wet sheets that pin down my arms and numb my mind. The scenery changes slightly — high and rocky instead of thick with trees, but I can't decipher how long we've been moving or how far we've gone. This aimless running feels like an exhausting form of torture. Just kill me! I feel like screaming at him. What are you waiting for?

But when I see a lone figure standing imperially on a rocky outcrop ahead, wearing a soaked dress of red satin, I understand.

"You're late," Maria snarls down at us.

Next to me, Second's eyes narrow to slits. Without warning he shoves me forward with a harsh push against my spine, making me stagger and nearly fall. "And successful," he adds pointedly.

There was no army, I realize, looking between the two of them and connecting all of the nonsensical pieces. There was no war. There was only Maria, and Second, and a plan to get me away from Jasper. I look behind us in dread, and realize that even in the short minute that we had been standing here, the trail of our footprints had disappeared beneath a layer of snow. Jasper couldn't follow me, even if he wanted to. That's what the blizzard was about — a way for them to get me out of Calgary, a way for them to cover their tracks and keep Jasper from finding me.

Maria descends the cliff with a light jump, and lifts an eyebrow at Second. "What? You want a cookie? A pat on the head?"

He scowls. "I don't know. Jesus. Maybe a 'thank you'?"

She laughs, a harsh sound that grates on my already shredded nerves. "You should know better than that, Second. Really. I'll thank you when this is all over with— when Monterrey is mine again, and the Louisiana coven is feeding off rats and chickens in some window-less, reeking shack," she says complacently. Her eyes cut over to scrutinize me, and when her lips curve into an overconfident smile, I remember what I saw in my vision — the pleased look on her face as she led Jasper into a trap, the satisfaction. "Let's get a move on. As soon as they figure out what happened, they'll be hot on our heels."

The hazy uncertainty of my situation clears, leaving me with nothing but a white-hot, terrible rage. It burns in my core the same way thirst burns my throat, deep and roiling in my gut. It isn't enough that she destroyed Jasper long before I even met him, that she damaged him beyond repair and ways that no one could ever know. But even after that, after he had finally found peace and solace, she still had to slither back into his life again. She is poison — poison for Jasper and poison for me, tainting every aspect of our life. I watch malevolently as she saunters away, hating her nonchalance, and her casual, arrogant disdain. When she notices that I'm not moving, she turns with a sigh and grabs my arm the same way Second did.

"Keep up, Princess. I'm not wasting anymore of my time on you."

I whip my arm out of her grasp so fast she stumbles. "You expect me to go with you after what you did to Jasper?" I whisper, shivering with rage.

Maria blinks once at my sudden fury, then rolls her eyes. "He's fine. Everyone's fine. Obviously I need Jasper, so it isn't like I harmed him in any manner."

I picture Jasper's broken face — his lifeless, shadowed eyes as he clutched the dead bodies of those two little girls, and feel something dark and horrible rise up within me. I am not, by nature, a vengeful person. Nor a violent one. I tend to find compassion for most people, even those who might not entirely deserve it. But Maria's insouciance tears away at me, evaporates every ounce of kindness and moral-integrity. I want to murder this woman, actually rip her throat out with my bare hands. I want it so badly that my hands shake, my chin trembling. What has she ever lost? What does she know about grief and suffering?

"You have no idea how much you harmed him," I hiss, my eyes glittering. "You have no idea how much this— on top of everything else you've already done— will haunt him, how much it will weigh him down with guilt. Guilt that never leaves— guilt that he will carry around for the rest of his life. They were just little girls! Children!"

Deeming me no threat, Maria ignores me completely. Instead, she looks at Second. "You told her?"

I realize then, that in my blind rage I had said too much — through my vision I knew about an aspect of the plot that I shouldn't have, and I just unknowingly revealed the one thing that might save me. I wait for Second to give me up and explain what he must suspect about my visions by now, but he doesn't say anything about future visions or premonitions. He only hesitates a moment, then shrugs. "I didn't know it was a secret."

"Learn some discretion, then," Maria snaps at him, and grabs my arm again. Her mere touch makes my skin crawl with loathing. I forget all else but this wild hatred, and the need for vengeance strikes up within me like a blazing torch. For what she did to Jasper back then, for what she's done to him now... I want her dead. I want her dead, and I no longer care about the cost of murder to my soul; I will kill her before she has a chance to kill me, right or wrong be damned. But she feels the way my muscles tighten beneath her fingertips, and the fiend within her recognizes the dark look in my eyes.

"Don't even think about it," she says flatly. "I have almost a century of training, strategy, and war. I can, and will, kill you. Even Jasper had enough sense not to—"

"Don't talk about him like you know him!" I spit out wildly. "Just don't!"

Jasper, my Jasper, with his quiet smiles and intense stares, was not the same Jasper Maria had so long ago owned. My Jasper, who loved to read and write and build things; the one who loved me with a burning steady thoroughness, didn't even remotely deserve the punishment of sharing any part of his life with this demon.

"I know a lot of things," she says coolly. "I know about his sense of honor, for one. Do you honestly think that tired sense of chivalry will allow him to stand idly by while I tie you to the train tracks? No. For whatever inconceivable reason, Jasper has feelings for you. Feelings that I will now use to my advantage. This is a business transaction, Princess. Nothing personal. And it was also, I might add, Jasper's choice. I very politely told him what would happen if he didn't cooperate, and he still chose to refuse me. His decision is what led you to this fate— he gave you up to save himself. You might want to think about that, before you start making threats."

I don't doubt that Jasper refused her, but I know with utter certainty that he never would have if he had known that the cost would be my life. Stealing me away from him wasn't necessary. If Maria had known anything about love at all, she would have threatened him with my death in the first place. Still, I think raising my head up, I'd rather die than have him return to her service. Knowing how noble Jasper is, and how much he loves me, I am almost ironically glad that it happened this way. "So, what? You're going to kill me now. Out of spite?"

She glares at me. "Have you even listened to a single word I've said? No. Of course I'm not going to kill you. Not unless you follow Jasper's bad example and choose to be difficult. I'd rather you didn't. This is a win-win situation. Very simple, really. Just a quick trip down to Monterrey where the Volturi are holding trail. I need you there, because as I mentioned, where you go, Jasper will follow. And I need Jasper there to affect the verdict. As soon as he does, and I get my territory back, I'll happily let you go." She holds out her hands like a pair of scales. "So: you come with us, and everyone stays alive and happy. You refuse, you die, and then Jasper has even more guilt heaped on his head."

"If he survives," Second adds, "which he likely won't."

Because I refuse to believe either one of these prolific liars, I cautiously check ahead, allowing myself to slip away from the present and into the future. The image that echoes back at me is the same for both choices, yes or no, with only a slight varying difference. Either way, the vision is not a pleasant one— both make my throat close up with horror: a bonfire, a forest full of smoke, branches dripping with the vestiges of rapidly melting snow. The only slight, barely discernible difference between the two is that in one vision I am there, and in the other I am not.

When I come back to the present, I know I have been gone for too long. Maria is angry, threatening, jerking me back and forth with a fiery look in her eyes. "What was that?" she shrieks, irritated by my lack of response. "What did you just do? Answer me!"

I bite my lip and wonder how I can get out of telling her, but Second gently pulls Maria away and rubs his hands up and down her arms soothingly. "Don't bother," he says in a bored voice, "she won't be able to answer you. There's something wrong with her, mentally— there was some sort of accident when she was changed. Every once and awhile she just blacks out and comes back babbling like a mental patient. It happened earlier, and the coven told me about it."

I stare at him, torn between feeling insulted by his interference or grateful for it. For reasons I'm not sure I understand, the secret stays hidden between us — like the stolen money in my coat pockets — away from Maria's prying eyes.

She looks down at me in disdain, disgusted by what she perceives as a weakness. "Figures," she drawls spitefully. "Jasper always did have a soft spot for the defective ones. If it happens again, throw her over your shoulder and keep running. We don't have time for mental breakdowns." She picks up the edge of her bedraggled skirt, and starts to run into the snowy distance. "Let's get on with it, no breaks. The whole coven is probably right behind us."

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A/N: I have to take a short break due to an impending deadline, but I will be back and writing again the week of the 22nd. Be patient, pretty please? With a cherry? :)