'
33 – Shredded
'
There was only one thing on God's green earth that could have distracted Paul from his myopic, frenetic shredding of the thing that had done what it'd done – and tried to do - to his mate.
And that was Bella herself.
As if a claws had cleaved his very soul asunder, the sensation of his heart being violently yanked from body made Paul freeze.
Immediately he could feel it. The desolate emptiness of a world without her. With out Bella. His imprint. His mate.
His chin jerking ferally from where he was throwing little sparkling bits into the purple plumes of burning flesh, the silence of her heartbeat was as loud as thunder.
"NO!" his entire being rebelled as he threw his head back in a bellow of utter desolation.
Without knowing how he got there, the next moment Paul was standing in the doorway, breath heaving, fists clenched at his side, his entire being shaking.
Sam looked up urgently with liquid eyes from where he was kneeling at Bella's side. "Her heart's stopped. She's lost too much blood," he wheezed in despair.
Paul watched as Charlie immediately fell on his mate, pinching her nose and blowing three breaths into her mouth.
An inhuman snarl tore out of Paul's chest as Charlie's hands fisted over her breast and administered three sharp compressions.
"Bella," Paul's bass voice shattered with grief like glass on concrete. In a breath, he was pushing Sam forcefully across the wood floor as he plowed his way beside her. With a heedless hand, he batted Charlie back out of the way, so hard the man's head cracked against the wall.
"No, babe. You gotta stay with me," he choked as his shaking hands gathered her limp, emaciated form into his arms. "You stay with me now, little girl."
Paul barely registered Charlie scrabbling back toward him, clawing wildly for Bella's body. "No! Get away from her! She needs CPR!" he cried, his voice breaking in panic. "Paul!"
Sam's hands were instantly pulling Charlie back. "Easy there, Chief. Wait."
"Wait? Christ she don't have no time! Let me go, Uley!" he barked, frantically struggling against the wolf's heedless iron grip.
Completely oblivious to the strident drama around him, Paul smoothed his large palm over his mate's bruised and battered face. She had fought so hard. How could he have let this happen? The first tear spilled over to land with a soft splash on her cheek.
"Babe," he breathed. "Please. Don't leave me. I love you… I love you! Oh, God, please." He rearranged her still body on his lap. Gulping - like in the dream- he instinctively lowered his mouth down to press against her still chalky lips. Her skin tasted sweet like the saccharine of vampire rot, and Paul had to suppress his gag, as rage siphoned like fire through his veins as if his blood were gasoline.
Taking a deep breath then expelling it slowly, Paul blocked out all else and kissed his delicate mate with all the love and devotion in his very being, desperately petitioning his vitality and essence to revive her tiny, abused body.
For a moment only the waves kept time to the ticking lifeless seconds, the wind chime icing its lament with a insolent gaiety.
Then, abruptly Bella gasped against Paul's mouth, her wheezing inhale drawing his breath from his lungs with a suffocating voraciousness. There was an odd, whooshing sensation as if one of those waves had crashed over his head and the waters then rushed back past him with an exigent sucking undertow. Paul sighed in blissful ecstasy and willingly released all of anything…everything… he had to his mate's exquisitely ravenous petition.
The tentative beat of her heart stuttering back to life was the sweetest music that Paul had ever imagined.
"Yesssssss, babe. Take it. Take it all," he crooned, choking with emotion as he impatiently tugged the blanket from between them and pulled her tenderly to his chest so that every last millimeter of skin possible was touching.
Someone anonymously helped him pull the blanket back around both of them, enveloping them together in heat, as Paul closed his eyes and his cheek fell heavily against Bella's forehead. He felt his strength, his breath, his very soul being siphoned off by his mate's destitute need. He smiled in peaceful serenity as silent tears spilled over into her hair and quiet sobs shook his body.
"Yesss, little girl. It's yours," he whispered breathily. "Take it all."
But she didn't.
Paul willed his life, his love, his very soul to fill the tiny body in his arms. Whether it was the curse of his supernatural invincibility or something else, he felt the draw from his body sluggishly sputter to a stop. Still, his mate's breath was frightfully shallow in her breast. Still her heartbeat tentative and stuttering.
"No," he breathed. "Dear God, just take it. Please," he rasped as he pulled Bella closer. Snuffling over her frantically, he scented her fresh blood still oozing from the wound at her neck. Ripping the towel away with his teeth, he sniffed the gaping oval wound over her pulse. His wolf began laving it instinctively. The bleeding mercifully slowed to a stop as he choked on the rusted sweetness of his mate's life, expelling a sob against her jaw.
Lupine whines of desolation leaked from his lips as he gingerly nuzzled her bruised face, his tongue darting out to slick over her salty skin in urgent, pleading caresses.
He couldn't feel her. Even though her broken body still drew breath, it was as if there were a gaping hole that had been torn from his world, rending it asunder. Wherever she had fled to endure what she had, he couldn't follow.
Paul was alone. Completely alone.
Their fledgling bond had been ripped and shredded, leaving a bereft and sucking vacuum where her warm, honey essence had been. Paul had been forsaken by the world for long, it should be a familiar sensation.
But it wasn't. He had been irreparably changed on such a very deep level… in such a very short time. He gagged in despair as he buried his face in her hair…searching… yearning… craving the other half of his very soul.
Deep inside him, the wolf pined wretchedly.
It was Paul who had failed her. Miserably.
'
'
Jasper couldn't stand the pain.
To bear witness to such soul-wrenching sorrow was excruciating – even without his gifts. It was a heartrending scene: that hulking, impervious, invulnerable man hunched in unbridled lament over the broken body of his lover and sobbing into her hair - a soft, hoarse, fallow sound of utter anguish.
Jasper turned brusquely as he ground his teeth together in rage.
In several brisk strides, Jasper was out on the patio, the scent of rain and ocean restorative and soothing. But even the ablution of the balmy tropical evening couldn't cleanse the sickening aftertaste that blackened anything left of his soul.
Never had he hated what he was.
Never, until now.
Witnessing first-hand the effects of the deranged depravity of one of his kind who had succumbed to twisted lust and hunger sickened him.
And he was sickened. By his kind. By his "brother." By the delusional parody of humanity they had all lulled themselves into…
But especially by his own abhorrent nature that still held a shameless erection for the girl and the alluringly delectable sweetness of her blood. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and then threw his fist into the column of the patio, idly watching as cracks splintered and forked along the solid stone surface. He realized in that moment just how difficult it was to toe the line between a remnant of humanity and honor and the profanity of the insatiable thirst that epitomized their kind. He had been fooling himself. They all had been.
This power: the immortality, the beauty, the strength… it was nothing but a hideous mask to cover an innate monstrosity. Vampires may lose the human vulnerabilities and imperfections with their Turning… but they retained all the greed and avarice of a humanity stripped of its soul. A curse indeed.
In a blur of movement, Jasper was down on the beach, yanking up the remaining head from the sand by the shock of permanently styled hair. Resentfully he turned the face around toward him. It was frozen in a contortion of pain, eyes squeezed closed, scraps of cloth and marble flesh hanging repulsively from its mouth. Jasper inadvertently smiled to himself. He too would have shoved the very tool of intended violation down the creature's throat if it had been his mate.
But she wasn't his mate.
He didn't have a mate.
The inadvertent thought made Jasper frown. Why did he not carry such impassioned instincts for Alice? Of course he would have exacted revenge for any of "his own" who had been abused in any way, but the sudden realization that it was different was like a slap in the face. A slap he had avoided for far too long. Alice was his wife (he certainly couldn't deny that - they had gotten married so many times he'd lost count) but she wasn't his mate. It was the cold, hard truth.
He had met Alice at such a time when he had been bankrupt. Sick at heart from fighting countless nightmare newborns -just so sick of fighting in and of itself– and she had been a breath of fresh air that had been absent for far too long in his life.
And she had been so sure. For the first time in Jasper's life he had stopped fighting and had gone with it. And he didn't have any regrets, not really. But seeing the profound bond that Paul and Bella shared – tasting the pure and authentic emotions of them both – made Jasper ache for more.
Just then the eyes in the disembodied head eerily popped open and Jasper unconsciously started. They were red and glowing and utterly feral. Any humanity Edward had retained had been adulterated beyond recognition.
Jasper sneered at the creature – he was no longer anything or anyone he had known.
"You fool. Of all the vile, filthy things you could have done – I think this one just about takes the cake," he spat in disgust. "If the boy hadn't done such a good job of it…I just might have been tempted to shove that cake down your throat myself."
There was something deep in his being that was incensed. Was it guilt? Longing? A need to distance himself from such depravity? He couldn't deny that something about the girl drew him in. Maybe it was simply the combination of genuine and guileless emotions with the particular ambrosial allure of her blood.
The head snarled and shook in his hands in a pitiful and mindless attempt at escape. With barely a consideration, Jasper tossed the appendage into the smoldering pile of flesh on the sand and began searching for any other pieces of discarded anatomy. It appeared that Paul had been shredding every last scrap of the beast with a meticulous attention. There was barely anything left.
Bending down to catch a wayward hand that was crawling across the sand like a spider in a vain search for its arm, Jasper glanced up at the werewolf crossing toward him.
"Does it bother you?" Sam asked quietly.
The hand horrifyingly grasped onto Jasper's fingers with desperation. Jasper peeled the appendage from him and shook it off into the fire. "Not really. Can't fathom what that boy did… he wasn't anyone I knew anymore," Jasper drawled quietly. "Or anyone I could ever cherish knowin'."
Sam nodded soberly and watched the flesh burst into a noxious cloud.
Jasper glanced pensively at the man who was staring vacantly into the purple licking flames. "She alright?" Jasper murmured.
Sam looked up with a grim expression. "Physically? Her heart's still beating. Looks like she'll make it… thanks to their bond."
Jasper sighed. They both knew that the unseen wounds would be the hardest to heal. For the both of them.
The sound of a motor boat snarling in the distance made each look up sharply over the blackened waters.
"Trouble?" Sam asked quietly. They had left a veritable mess in their wake at the port.
"Dunno," Jasper's brow tilted in confusion. "Everyone in Buzios knows to stay away from this island. There are … stories… that we haven't been exactly discouragin' about what lives in these parts."
But as the vessel came into view from out of the gloom, the mystery was solved. Carlisle and Alice and the others stood still as statues in the misting rain. The yacht veered toward them and their stretch of the shoreline.
Jasper raised a hand in greeting, as Sam backed farther away from him uncertainly. Like a whisper, the wolf disappeared in the house.
Jasper didn't blame him. He, himself, wondered what kind of welcome would greet him from his clan. He met the others at the beach. Carlisle's bleak expression told him that they already knew.
Alice splashed through shallow waves and threw herself at Jasper, wrapping her tiny arms around his body as she buried her face in his chest. The overture surprised him; he had expected a barrage of incrimination and blame.
"I didn't see it! I'm so sorry, Jas," she looked up with round haunted eyes that showed the vulnerability of the acknowledged fallibility. "I didn't see it until it was too late… what he was planning to do to her…" she whimpered, her lips quivering and correspondingly breaking Jasper's heart.
Jasper smoothed back a lock of spiky black hair. "Darlin' you didn't see it, 'cause you didn't want ta," he murmured quietly. "He went berserk on us all. There just wasn't any reckonin' for that."
Carlisle took slow steps up on the sand, glancing behind Jasper at the telling plumes of purple smoke. He looked stricken. Esme clapped a hand over her mouth with a little gasp of horror and pressed herself into his side hiding her face in shame.
"It's my fault," Carlisle whispered quietly. "I should have seen the signs. He had been stretched too thin by grief and thirst. Edward in his right mind would have never-"
Jasper interrupted him. "Don't you go makin' excuses for that boy, now. He reaped what he sowed, right enough."
Carlisle's gaze snapped to Jasper and he considered him a moment. Jasper saw the tortured realization that comes with a poignant glance in the mirror. The illusion in which the man had so invested himself was far more tenuous than he had ever realized. The shock and torment of shattered naivety was painful for Jasper to witness. His still heart stuttered in empathy.
It was the very nature of what they were to hunger, to consume, to take. A nature that every one of this… "family"… strove to combat in one way or another.
And one that needed a fearful respecting, Jasper thought. Carlisle understood that now – he could see it.
It was just a little too late for all that.
As a group, they somberly moved up to where the flames were spluttering in the spitting rain, the purple luminescence looking garishly gay and … beautiful in the darkness.
Carlisle bowed his head over the remnants of his oldest friend. Not with a sadness per se, Jasper thought. More of a regret.
Rosalie, on the other hand, huffed and leaned forward and spat over the fire – her volatile spittle erupting into a shower of sparks that fell with an eerie twinkling grace. "Don't waste your time, Carlisle," she hissed vehemently. "And glad you saved me the trouble, Jas."
Jasper looked up in surprise and considered her infuriated and indignant expression. Their reactions had certainly surprised him, and so very little surprised him anymore. In the end it was an adherence to principal, not a loyalty to their kind that tempered each and every response. Perhaps there for hope for them after all.
Jasper tipped his head with a wry smile. "It was my pleasure, darlin'."
'
'
Damn it all to hell. Just when you thought things couldn't get worse, Sam thought bitterly. Paul was going to go ballistic. And he already was just running on fumes.
Sam's gaze snapped to his Pack mate whose head was nodding and bobbing with the effort of staying upright with the drain of what his mate's recovery demanded. His whole body jerked back up blindly at the sound of Sam's quiet footsteps across the floor as a soft protective snarl rumbled in his chest.
"It's just Sam," Charlie murmured quietly from where he was sitting on the floor leaning back against the wall, his face anxious, red-rimmed eyes glued to his daughter wrapped in Paul's arms. They were all soul-weary and worn. Exhausted from the ebbing adrenaline wash of finally having Bella out of immediate harm's way. It seemed a cruel joke to have to snap so soon to round two.
Sam knew all too well about the soul-eating torment of not being able to protect his imprint. The self-loathing, the blame, the gut-wrenching agony…
Then came looking into her eyes every day and facing what he had let happen.
There just weren't words.
Sam motioned grimly to Charlie and the man pushed himself up off the floor with a grunt. Charlie was quickly by his side, his face a telling mask of apprehension.
"Charlie, the rest of the Cullen's are here," Sam whispered. Paul was so completely consumed with his mate, that he didn't even look up.
Charlie glanced anxiously back at where Paul was slowly rocking Bella back and forth in his arms, soft keening whines pooling in the back of his throat as he snuffled over her bruised face in a very wolf-like gesture of distress.
"Well, they need to leave," Charlie whispered harshly, his hand falling meaningfully to his weapon. "Now."
Carlisle Cullen appeared in the doorway at that moment, his face a mask of grating regret and concern. He was flanked by two women – his wife and a blond who looked pissed as hell. Sam straightened in ready.
With a roar, Paul was pushing off the ground, piteously lurching and staggering to stand in his depleted condition. Sam was by his side in a heartbeat, holding him up while he senselessly snarled at the vampires, Bella clutched frantically to his chest.
Struggling to support Paul's huge frame as he feebly swayed on his feet, Sam was surprised when Charlie stepped in front of them both with an overtly threatening stance.
"Don't you be comin' any closer now," he bellowed pulling his gun out of its holster and aiming it steadily at the group.
Sam felt like laughing. If they so wanted, they'd all be dead in the next instant. His little party was pitifully outnumbered.
Carlisle's face fell in an expression of plaintive sorrow as he held his hands up docilely. "I'm so very sorry, Chief Swan. I so wish we had gotten here sooner."
The blond literally spat, "yeah, I woulda liked to have ripped the head off that skinny body myself."
Sam blinked in surprise. The blond was pissed at Edward?
Paul was still desperately trying to struggle away from Sam's grasp, stumbling back from the threat to his mate while twisting to shelter Bella's body with his massive shoulders. His eyes were wide and wild as rabid snarls foamed on his lips.
"Well I think your kind has already done enough damage for one night. Why don't you just be on your way," Charlie grumbled.
Carlisle nodded solicitously and then his eyes dipped to where Paul was viciously staring him down with gnashing teeth.
"You know I'm a doctor, Charlie," he petitioned quietly. "I can examine Bella and make sure she is well enough for the trip home. Jasper has told me some of what she endured."
As if on cue, Jasper appeared beside him. "I know it goes against just 'bout everything you're feelin' right now, but her hand's broken – and probably more. He won't hurt her, you got my word on that," he drawled as his hand came up to rest solemnly over his dead heart.
Charlie whipped around and met Sam's gaze uncertainly. His eyes were glistening with conflict: Bella's wellbeing warred overtly with an acrid instinct to keep the creatures away from his daughter.
"Jasper, would you get my bag from the boat?" Carlisle crooned as he began rolling up his sleeves.
Even with 'good intentions' these goddamn bloodsuckers just assumed too damn much, Sam bristled as he wrapped his arm more tightly around his brother. Arrogant bastards.
With a stricken expression that mirrored that thought, Charlie turned back around and took slow steps toward Paul, watching him carefully. "Paul, we gotta get her checked out," he murmured in petition.
Paul blinked, his feral eyes instantly heating in yellow and snapping to Charlie's lips as if struggling to comprehend his words.
"Can you do it, son?" he asked reaching out a tentative hand and placing it on Paul's forearm in a clearly fatherly gesture.
The fact that Paul didn't rip the man's arm off right then and there shocked the hell out of Sam.
It was a silent showdown between the two, as Paul's breath heaved in his chest. A strangled growl of anguish bubbled up from his throat.
Paul wouldn't be able to do it, Sam knew. Even Sam didn't think he could stomach letting one of those things touch her again, no matter the stakes. But Charlie couldn't smell them, he couldn't see beyond the illusion of humanity that they so successfully wove.
Oh, they were asking too much of the wolf, and it was going to end badly. Sam struggled with his flailing instinct and the vibrating body being tenuously restrained in his arms.
Jasper had returned with the doctor's bag and Carlisle took it without tearing his eyes from the wolves before him. He took slow hesitant steps forward, the others instinctively falling back.
Paul's body began trembling violently in Sam's grasp as Charlie moved - blissfully oblivious - to the side to allow the doctor access.
Carlisle held up both hands in placation. "I just need to see…" he murmured quietly as Paul pushed desperately back against Sam, holding Bella tighter.
With steady, alabaster fingers Carlisle reached out and ghosted them over Bella's bruised jaw. At the cold touch of his hand, a soft wail trembled on Bella's lips and she feebly turned her cheek into Paul's chest.
A ferocious growl ripped from Paul's chest as his face eerily transformed into the wolf and lashed out with snapping jaws. He tore his body from Sam's grip so hard he fell into the wall with a crash.
Carlisle's unnaturally fast reflexes were the only thing that spared his arm.
Suddenly fully alert and steady, Paul snarled murderously from where he crouched, inching back away from the hastily retreating doctor.
"Looks like there's your answer, doc. I'll be thinkin' you understand," Charlie drawled dryly as he eyed the vampire with a small smile of satisfaction, seeming relieved to have it decided for him. And somewhat smugly pleased with the outcome.
"I do." Carlisle's shoulders fell slightly as he nodded. "I wish ..." he let his words die on his tongue as he turned around abruptly and let his head fall forward with remorse.
Sam felt the smallest modicum of pity for the vampire.
It didn't last long.
He would just have to get his absolution somewhere else – not from his Pack. Not after this.
"We need to go home," Sam growled as the validity of that simple statement settled over him like a sigh of relief. He glanced at his Pack mate who was slumped against the wall and breathing like a racehorse through his nose, Bella clutched protectively to his shoulder as his eyes darted warily over the scene before him. Sam squared his shoulders with resolve. "Now."
'
'
Paul hunched in the back of the boat growling venomously along with the motor as he held his mate wrapped tightly in several blankets. Sam and Charlie sat protectively between him and the three vampires at the helm. Carlisle, Jasper and the blond – Rosalie? – had volunteered to chaperone them back, while the others cleaned up the "collateral damage." Too bad they couldn't do the same for the damage to Sam's Pack.
The boat careened over the waves of the open ocean on a course straight for Rio's harbors. As the twinkling lights of the city came into view, Sam released a long sigh of relief. It was almost over.
They docked without incident and then were ferried quickly toward the airport.
"Everything's arranged," Carlisle turned from the front of the limo. "You'll be leaving within the hour."
Charlie nodded to the vampire with a harsh grunt of assent as he got out of the car, holding the door vigilantly for Paul.
The phlegmatic florescent lighting of the non-commercial concourse were harsh and gave Sam a distinctly disassociated feeling as they briskly strode through the terminal. All battle-worn, worried, and shredded inside, the unconcerned normalcy around them gave Sam a sense of vertigo.
Carlisle generously greased palms with copious bills for their expediency and discretion. But Sam couldn't find it anywhere in his being for even a grudging gratitude.
Except in one odd little spot he'd have never expected.
Maybe it was just the soothing illusion that she was a girl, but the only thing remotely comforting about the entire trip through the bright, bustling halls – oddly enough – was Rosalie. She walked with a certain protectiveness, always with her body between Sam and Paul and the other two vampires, hissing reprovingly if Carlisle or Jasper - or even a passing pedestrian, for that matter- even glanced at Bella. She was the only one who seemed to understand that Paul would simply rip out their throats and ask questions later of any other male who even looked askance at her right now.
Rosalie was an interesting enigma, but one Sam didn't have the strength or bandwidth to analyze. He was just glad to make it through the halls with out any bloodshed.
In the luxurious and comfortable waiting area, Paul paced the floor with his bundled mate as they waited for the private jet to taxi and fuel.
Carlisle pulled Charlie aside. "Are you sure you don't want me to accompany you?"
Charlie laughed darkly once, with a knowing glance to Sam. "Surer than anything in my goddamn life."
Carlisle pursed his lips with an efficient nod. "There is one final affair, then, that needs to be discussed."
Charlie's eyebrows shot up in surprise with undisguised displeasure "That right?"
Sam froze skeptically at the vampire's tone. What now?
"Edward … was a wealthy man…" Carlisle began in a hushed voice.
"He weren't no man," Charlie spat. "Not with what he did to my daughter."
Carlisle pressed his lips together in concession and swallowed. "His estate is now yours, if you would take it," he continued quietly.
Charlie's face went suddenly beet red. "You think you can just buy away your guilty conscience? You arrogant sonofabitch, we ain't some ignorant imbeciles that you can pay to make it alright – like you do." He waved a dismissive hand around the airport as a vein popped prominently at his temple.
Sam took several steps toward the furious man – he was finally at his breaking point, and Sam couldn't blame him. The vamps were damn cocky motherfuckers, the lot of them.
"We're taking you up on the plane ride, just cause we don't have no choice. But I don't want none of your filthy money," Charlie continued, hissing through his teeth indignantly.
"Not for you… for her," Carlisle appealed, with a chafing edge of placating patronization. "She won't ever want for anything again." There was a certain desperateness to his voice. Sam supposed Charlie had been right – that was exactly what the vampire was doing: paying down a guilty conscience - even if he couldn't admit it to himself.
"What she wants is to never have met that boy of yours," Charlie bit out, incensed.
"Charlie, let Bella decide," Paul growled suddenly from where he had frozen in his pacing.
Sam whipped around in surprise to see his burning eyes trained singularly on the vampire, an intense and unfathomable expression on his face.
Paul's eyes darted to Charlie who held his gaze for a moment as silent communication passed between them. And suddenly Sam understood; she had had too many choices taken from her already. Paul's mind was as sharp as a tack. Even now.
Charlie turned back to the vampire with a curt nod of agreement. "Alright," he grumbled grudgingly.
"Very good," Carlisle expelled an subtle sigh of triumphant relief. "I'll have my attorneys draw up the papers and contact-"
Charlie held up a terse hand. "You can reach me at the station. Official business only," Charlie frowned in warning.
"I understand," Carlisle appeased.
At that moment, the same stewardess sashayed down the gangway and then visibly froze in dismay at the sight of her passengers. Sam chuckled and gave Charlie a knowing ghost of a wink. The moment of levity was like a breath of fresh air.
It was almost over.
Sam stepped forward to put his hand on Paul's arm from where he still stared down the vamp with an incinerating gaze, but his Pack mate ripped his arm from his grasp.
He stalked purposefully toward Carlisle several steps. "You set so much as a toe anywhere near the state of Washington again, and you're dead," he snarled with a dark savagery under his breath. "Deader," he smirked as an afterthought. "There's no more fucking treaty. Ever. got that?"
Carlisle nodded urbanely and folded his hands in front of him looking like a properly castigated child. Sam wanted to rip off that civil and sophisticated expression right then and there.
So did Paul, apparently.
With no further word or acknowledgement, Paul turned abruptly on his heel and briskly pushed past the cowering stewardess. "Fucking jack up the heat. All the way up," he growled out of the side of his mouth as he stalked to the plane holding his mate with a tenderness that was in direct conflict with the fury in his stride.