30 Days of Night

Disclaimer:

I own absolutely nothing. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and 30 Days of Night belongs to Steve Niles.

Chapter Twenty-Five: An Unexpected Face:

Bella POV

When you can't sleep, you have vast amounts of time to think and, when your brain works at a speed that would put some computers to shame, you can entertain vast amounts of thoughts at once. I suppose that ability comes in handy in certain circumstances, such as hunting, when vampires need to take into account things like sights, smells, sounds, terrain, enemies, danger, and distances. It takes even more multitasking when trying to interact with humans. But when it's three o'clock in the morning and all you can do is lay on a bed that's not your own and stare at a ceiling that's part of a home that you had once wanted to share more than anything, all of those thoughts, all of those processes, are little daggers that chip away at you, that eat into the walls you build around yourself to keep from falling apart. I was starting to fall apart. I thought about my life and how everything seemed to have gone wrong, about how I had come to this place, about how my life had taken so many bad turns and how everything I had wanted was suddenly gone, replaced by things I hadn't ever really thought about. Then I thought about how some things I had wanted I now had, even though I had gotten them at a price.

I was a vampire; I was dead. Maybe someday I'd graduate from high school and go to college and get that literature degree I had always dreamed about, but it wouldn't be the same because I would still be dead and my father, even if he pulled out of his coma, still wouldn't be able to be there. I thought about Edward and how much I loved him and how much I wanted to forgive him, but also how much he had hurt me and how much I hated him sometimes for making me feel things I never wanted to feel again. By the time the clock struck four, I had thought about so many different things, all of them swirling around my mind at once, I thought I was starting to go crazy.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. Being in the Cullen house was too difficult. Laying on that bed, hearing what everyone was doing, what they were saying, wishing that I could just gather up the courage to go into Edward's bedroom and lay with him instead of in the guest room, where I felt like an outsider all over again, was too much. I stood, my muscles firing, the sudden, desperate need to run overpowering me. Wrenching open the bedroom door, I flew down the stairs, toward the back doors, through which I could hear the trees groaning in the wind and the river rushing, tumbling gallons of water downstream over the rocks.

Alice's musical voice stopped me. "And just where do you think you're going?" She asked. I turned and saw her standing in the doorway to the living room, her hands on her hips, her head cocked to the side, a small smirk playing on her lips.

"For a run," I said.

"Alone?" Alice asked, frowning now.

"I need some space," I said, clawing at my hair, running my hands through my messy locks. Sighing in frustration, I shook my head. "It's all too much, all of these thoughts. I feel like my brain is going to explode."

"You shouldn't go out alone," Alice said sternly.

I knew that she wanted me to ask her to go with me, but I couldn't. Alice would ask me too many questions. She would want to try to help me sort through things and I didn't want help. I didn't want to sort through my thoughts, I just wanted to forget them for a while. "Did you see anything to indicate that I shouldn't go out alone?" I asked.

"Well, no," she replied hesitantly, taking a few steps forward. "But I can't seem to see much of importance these days," she added bitterly. I knew that she was frustrated with her now flailing ability. "Maybe when Carlisle gets here he can help us figure out why," she mused. "Still, you shouldn't go out alone, not being a newborn and not with Victoria out there and werewolves running the border. You don't even know where the border is," she pointed out.

"I think it's safe to assume when I start to smell wet dog I'm close," I muttered. Rolling my eyes, I called out, "Jasper? Can you come here?"

He appeared from Carlisle's study, silently moving down the stairs. "Yes?" He asked.

"I want to go for a run and maybe hunt something while I'm out there," I explained. "Alice says I need a chaperone. Care to go with?" I saw Alice's face fall and I knew she was hurt that I didn't ask her. I knew Edward was hurt too; I could hear a hitch in his breathing before it resumed its normal rhythm.

"Of course," Jasper said, flashing his wife an apologetic smile before moving out the door with me.

We ran in silence for about fifty miles until I finally slowed and stopped altogether. I should have been panting, out of breath, but I wasn't. I felt like I had only run a couple of feet. As a human, I would have been stumbling all over the place, tripping on tree roots and face planting in the mud. Now, I moved just as swiftly, gracefully, and quietly as Jasper. Walking over to a rock outcropping, I sat down, Jasper taking a seat beside me.

"Good run?" He finally asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "I needed to get out of that house for a while."

"I know," he said dryly.

Smiling sheepishly, I shrugged. "Sorry," I said. Of course Jasper knew, he had been able to feel every single one of my emotions. I felt bad about making him go with me; it was probably unbearable for him.

"It's okay," he said, bumping shoulders with me. It was like two rocks hitting each other. Old Bella would have been on the forest floor nursing a blackening bruise, but new Bella barely moved an inch. "For a very long time I've felt all of Edward's anguish, loneliness, and self-hatred. I'm used to it. Throwing your uncertainty and anger on the mix is just like throwing some twigs onto an already burning bonfire. It just lights up a little brighter for a while."

"It must suck to be you," I murmured, half-playfully, though part of me was serious. I hadn't really understood how horrible Jasper's gift could be. When someone was happy, he could feel it and share it, but when someone was miserable, he had no choice but to feel that too.

"Sometimes it does," he agreed, surprising me. I had never heard Jasper complain about anything. "But all the little moments make it worth it."

"What do you mean?" I asked, honestly curious. I didn't really know much about my older brother. He had always stayed away from me for my own protection and, now that he didn't have to, I wanted to get to know him better.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "when I find the perfect gift for Alice, even though she's already seen it in her mind and knows what it is, I still feel just how excited and happy she is to receive it and that makes me happy too. I feel the love between Esme and Carlisle when they look at each other, when she runs her hand over his, just like I feel the love between Rosalie and Emmett. In that motel room, I could feel how worried Emmett was about her. He was sick with it because he felt like he had failed her, but Rose was so content to lay there with him, despite the pain. She adores him," he explained, then he turned to look at me, his topaz eyes glimmering. "And when Edward brought you over for the first time, I could feel how much he loved you, how excited he was to have found you, how nervous, how…well, everything, and all of those years of anguish just melted away. I've never felt him freer or happier than when he's with you, even now."

I felt like crying again, only I knew that, if I could, tears of happiness would be flowing down my cheeks. Jasper silently wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I tucked my head into the crook of his arm. "I have a question," I said.

"What?" He asked.

"Back in Barrow and in the motel room," I said, "you were staring at me. I don't understand why. It was like you were trying to figure something out. I meant to ask you about it earlier, but everything's just been so crazy."

Jasper shifted folding his hands in his lap. "What did Edward tell you about me?" He asked.

"Not much," I admitted.

"I don't want to get into the whole story now," he said, looking down at his hands. "It's not something I like to talk about. But I have a great deal of experience with newborns."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Sighing, he rolled up his sleeve. I had never noticed them before, my human eyes unable to perceive them, but now I saw what seemed like thousands of intersecting scars that lined his arm, traveling up to where his shirt still covered his skin, and I imagined that his chest was littered with the scars too. "Oh, Jasper," I said, hesitantly reaching out to touch his arm. "What happened to you?"

"I trained newborn vampires down South," he said. "There was a time when the southern vampires would try to create armies. That's over now, the Volturi put an end to it."

"The vampire royalty?" I asked.

"For all intents and purposes, yes," he answered. "They don't like large groups of vampires banding together. It makes them feel threatened."

"What does this have to do with me?" I asked, scrunching up my face in confusion.

He laughed. "You're a newborn vampire, Bella," he said. "You're supposed to act a certain way, but you don't. In fact, you act the opposite of how you should."

"How so?" I asked.

"Your bloodlust should be insatiable," he explained. "You shouldn't be able to be within a mile of people without being overcome by it, yet, you rode in a car with three humans and didn't once try to attack them. Hell, you went into a hospital and came out completely calm."

"I wanted to bite my mother," I blurted out, then covered my mouth with shame.

"Bella, it's okay," Jasper said, reaching over to take my hand. "You have amazing control for a newborn. I can't really believe it. I'm sort of glad you wanted to bite your mother, it makes me feel less guilty about wanting to bite practically everyone," he joked. I found myself laughing along with him. "I'm sorry I was staring at you, but I just couldn't believe it. I kept waiting for your instincts to kick in and take over, but they never did. You truly astound me, Bella."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just laid my head back on his shoulder and closed my eyes. I wasn't certain how much time passed, but at nearly the same moment, both Jasper and I tensed. The scent reached me over the breeze, a sweet smell – the smell of vampires. For a moment, I thought it might be Edward or Alice coming to check on us, but I realized that I didn't recognize the scent. Then I picked up another. Jasper jumped to his feet, immediately assuming a defensive possession, motioning for me to mimic him.

"Can we run?" I asked.

"No," he replied lowly, "they're too close."

"Do you know who they are?" I pressed.

He inhaled deeply, his mouth set in a grim line. "One of them is Victoria. I recognize her scent from the baseball field."

"And the other?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied.

I didn't have to wait long to find out. I saw Victoria's flame red hair first as she stepped out of the trees. She was smiling smugly, her eyes locked on me. But it was the second vampire that captured my attention. My mouth dropped open. "Oh my God," I murmured.

"What is it?" Jasper asked, growling as they approached.

I couldn't reply, I couldn't look away, I couldn't do anything but stare into the red eyes of one man I truly never thought I would see again. I shouldn't have been so surprised, we hadn't disposed of any of them properly. We had never set any of them on fire for fear of alerting the others to our presence. Not until the last fight did any of them burn. Yet, I still couldn't believe it and I felt the familiar chill of fear clutching at my heart. Standing next to Victoria, with his arms crossed over his chest, was John Riis.