Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns all.
Rated M for several reasons.
Chpt 24 A Hit and A Miss
BPOV
As soon as Esme emerges from the bathroom I can dodge it no longer, curling up in one of the suite's curiously uncomfortable armchairs I lift the lid on the Jasper box.
This is always a voyage into the unknown since I don't do it enough to learn any control over my gift. With familiarity I can find the things I want quite easily, like Garrett's box. If I want to see him the day he went off to fight for his independence then I can usually go straight there. So worth it, he was drop dead gorgeous in his uniform and his mother was always taking the leather thong out of his hair too, woman of taste. When I'm not familiar with the contents then anything can happen.
Like now. It's not like recording from your TV, I can't move backwards and forwards easily and there's no index so I just end up hopping about and finding a load of things I don't want to see.
Like Jasper laying waste to his dinner in his newborn year. I could do without the feelings that go with it too. Very nasty. I delve about some more. Fuck me I've led a sheltered life. Jeez Louise, I didn't even know that was anatomically possible. Ew Jasper, you dirty boy. Peter, Charlotte, Alice, the cloud slowly lifting from his soul. Poor Jasper, what a shitty life he was forced to lead, I'll kill Edward if he ever does him down again. Hypocrite. Bless him, his love for Alice is like a warm blanket, carefully wrapped around every second of their life together.
Maybe with the power of positive thinking I can get to the end, find out what happened at the house. After a few false starts I make it to Christmas Day and afraid of losing my place I patiently wait it out.
The wild adrenaline surging through his veins during the brief fight in the forest sweeps through me like a drug. And his resignation about the upcoming torture, his determination to protect the rest of us from it. His total relaxation in the knowledge that there are no other vampires around, just us and Gavan.
He watches us as we melt away into the trees. Then with the familiarity born of practice he rips away Gavan's limbs and re-attaches his head, settling down on his haunches to wait as it seals itself in place.
Then, abruptly, static. Just as Edward described. White noise and snow. There's nothing. Oh Jasper, what happened to you?
With a heavy heart I track back to confirm something else that I noticed before my expended mental energy lets me slip into the abyss.
"Bella? Bella?" I open my eyes to find both Edward and Esme in my face, brows furrowed in consternation.
"You've been out for four hours." Esme whispers, pushing the hair back from my forehead like Renee used to. "Are you okay?"
I nod.
Esme withdraws, Edward leans in closer.
"I don't like it when you do that." He says quietly.
"Neither did Garrett." I huff, shooing him out of my face so I can sit up.
The three of us regard each other in silence. Esme and Edward apparently too polite to grill me.
"It's not good news." I offer eventually.
"Well?" Esme asks, settling into the chair opposite me while Edward perches on the arm of mine.
"There's nothing." I edit. "After we left him at the house with Gavan. Nothing. Just static, like someone tuned him off station."
"Is he dead?" Esme asks, clutching her chest.
"I don't know. I don't think so. I mean I wouldn't have been able to absorb him if he were. At least I don't think I would."
"You're gift is fascinating." Edward sighs, eyes faraway. "I wonder if . . . ."
"Edward!" Esme snaps. "Can we please focus?"
"Sorry." He mutters flicking an apologetic glance at me.
I seize the opportunity to kill his thought process before it can get going, like father like son. "No wondering. I'm not exploring anything that knocks me unconscious. Never."
Which reminds me, time to fess up.
"I have some of Garrett inside me too." For a moment a look very akin to jealousy flits across Edward's face. "It happened by accident when I was very young. I only bring it up because in all his memories I never once saw Carlisle or . . . ."
Oops. Nearly slipped up. I don't think they know Garrett knew Maria, never mind that Carlisle did in the biblical sense. I hope I'm not hiding anything that affects what's going on here.
"That's odd." Esme muses. "Carlisle and Garrett were friends for centuries."
I nod in agreement.
"I agree it's odd but I don't understand how that affects what's going on now." Edward says.
"Carlisle doesn't show up in Jasper's memories either, not once." I sigh. "And neither does Maria."
"I don't understand." Edward accuses. "I thought you said you got everything. How could entire people be missing?"
"I don't know." I huff, rubbing my dry scratchy throat. "It's not like they've been cut out, there aren't any gaps, they're just not there. Not even any memories or thoughts about them. It's like they were edited out in the final cut of the movie."
They aren't following me and unfortunately the best example is Garrett's change. I saw it happen, felt his pain, his fear but somehow I never ever realised that I didn't see who did it. Or how they guided him through his newborn year. And I saw all of his newborn year, felt all of his emotions, felt his respect for his creator, without ever once wondering why I didn't see who it was. And the time they spent with Maria, gone completely, I can't even work out where his life stopped and re-started to fit that in. It appears to be seamless. I could go on and on, all the times he met his Sire, I know every action and emotion, but not that it was Carlisle. How the hell could I missed something like that?
Edward and Esme are watching me. Inspiration strikes.
"Do you remember the night of my birthday party?"
Esme nods and Edward winces.
"I now have everything Jasper thought and felt." My puritanical streak pops out for a moment. "And you should know that your combined thirst for my blood is what pushed him over the edge." I shake my head. "Anyway, it's all there with perfect clarity. Except no Carlisle. No scent. No thoughts about him. No memory of him. Nothing. I can feel his love for the patriarch of his family but there's nothing on who that person is."
"I don't understand . . . ." Edward murmurs, shaking his head at me with that patient expression I remember from my human life.
"Oh for fuck's sake Edward we could fill a library with what you don't understand." I howl. "Can you be more specific?"
"I think." Esme murmurs, getting to her feet. "That you guys have some things to discuss. I'll just pop next door and watch a movie or something."
And in a flash she's gone.
"Bella . . . ."
"Do you think I'm a fucking expert at this shit?" I demand, surging to my feet and accidently knocking him down to the carpet.
Wisely he stays where he fell.
"All I know is that Carlisle and Maria have completely disappeared from their memories, like they never existed. What else do you want? You want me to tell you how? Who? Why? Do I look like I've a fucking crystal ball shoved down my pants?"
"Bella, I . . . ."
"You? You what? You want to apologise again? Edward you can apologise until hell freezes over and it won't make any difference! Carlisle's dead. Maria's dead. Rosalie and Eme . . . . Emmett are dead! Garrett's dead.
And I don't know why. I don't understand! I ne . . . . need to understand."
My towering rage collapses in on itself and I sink back into the chair.
"You're angry with me."
No shit. Where the hell did that come from?
"You left me. You lied to me. You betrayed me." My voice sounds tired and weak.
"That's the first time you've ever actually accused me of the truth." He points out.
And he's right.
"Does it make you feel better?" I sigh.
"No."
"Doesn't me either. So what's the point?"
"It's accepted wisdom that getting it all off your chest is part of the healing process."
"Whoop de do. Aren't I healthy." I snark.
He waits in silence.
"Alright." I accept finally. "You hurt me. Not deliberately I realise. But you did. I was completely in love with you, the idea of you, and you shattered my dreams."
"I didn't mean to. I only ever wanted you to be safe and happy."
Like a pet. There's so much wrong with the way he perceived me that I wouldn't even know where to start.
"Why are we dredging up ancient history?" I ask fretfully. "Surely we've got more important things to worry about at this point?"
"I never realised before how adept you are at avoiding things you don't want to face." He observes quietly.
"What am I avoiding?" I snap, my anger rising again. "I can't avoid what you did. I can't avoid what happened to Garrett and other people I cared about. What do want from me, a complete breakdown?"
"You're not telling me everything. You never have."
"Well excuse me!" I scream, leaping to my feet again to look down at him. "What gives you the right to every facet of my pain? Who died and made you god of my inner most thoughts? How fucking dare you accuse me of withholding after all the lies you told!"
"I'm only trying to help you . . . ."
"Don't! Don't try and help me. You have no idea. That shit you pulled? It means nothing to me compared to losing Garrett. Nothing! The only thing you need to answer to me for is the death of my mate protecting your sorry ass!"
"I didn't realise how much he meant to you . . . ." He whispers, gaining his feet and moving toward me.
"Don't touch me!" I scream, lashing out and instinctively using my learned abilities.
Esme appears in the new opening I've made in the suite's architecture.
"Um?"
"Not going well." Edward gasps picking himself out of her bedroom wall.
"I'm not surprised Edward." She says waspishly. "I cannot for the life of me think of anything you can say to her that will not make her want to toast you over an open fire. However I have faith in your determination and Bella's ability to see the best in everyone. Good night."
Esme withdraws and Edward returns to me, shaking dry wall out of his unruly hair and wrinkled clothing.
We regard each other in silence.
"Where did you learn to punch like that?" He asks eventually, rubbing his jaw.
"I had a good teacher." I shrug. Two in fact. And there I go with the withholding again. Meh, I'm still well up in the moral stakes.
"Perhaps we should focus on the problem at hand?"
Excellent. Let's do that.
Oh, right.
"We really don't know anything do we?" I moan, collapsing back into the chair.
"We've been attacked twice with physical violence. Once with, whatever that was that wiped Jasper. What's the link?"
I'm glad that's a rhetorical question.
Edward continues. "The physical attacks were probably meant to kill or capture. Me probably if it's Daire. But why just wipe Jasper rather than kill him? Whoever did that killed Gavan so surely they can't be on the same side? That much is obvious."
It is?
"Couple that with the doctored memories you've found. Based on the evidence I'd have to say there are two forces working against us potentially. Although why anyone would wipe Jasper's memory and then kill the vampire he was going to question for information I don't know."
"Maybe the two of them knew something they didn't want anyone else to know?"
"That makes sense, but what?"
I shrug helplessly.
"I've got nothing either." He confesses quietly, returning to picking the lumps out of his hair.
The urge to apologise for my earlier outburst is strong, even though I recognise that I have every right to be angry with him. I fight it back on the basis that I don't want to re-open that particular conversation or the subjects that go with it. I stand by what I said earlier. What good would it do? Nothing will change. He will still have hurt me and the others will still be dead. How I feel about it is neither here nor there.