"Nope." I couldn't help the words flowing out of my mouth. Total verbal diarrhea. "I just thought it'd be fun."
The ridiculously hot boy -too tame of a description - man blinked at me with wide eyes. A million emotions crossed his face as if he were watching a movie or reading a book in the span of a single moment, like my words caved way to a secret enclave of information that he'd been searching for.
The moment broke when Jasper laughed and bumped his forehead to mine gently. "Alice, you're special to me. No matter how far down that head of yours takes you, I'll always find a way back to you." He cradled my face with his hands, and I once again got a terrible sense of déjà vu.
Tears clouded my eyes and I couldn't even verbalize why. I'd just been kissing a stranger who I'd thought was cute. That was all. Yet somehow he made it blatantly clear that there was so much of my previous life that I'd loved and it had been completely eradicated by the insidious static in my brain. It'd been beautiful and mine, but now it was all gone.
"I want to remember everything so bad." I confessed in an anxious whisper, "There's this feeling that keeps haunting me, like it's trying to tell me something."
"I'll help you, but you've got to give me some more time, darlin'." He looked so determined and sincere that it was impossible to doubt him.
He wiped my tears away and coaxed me closer to him with gentle hands that were more persuasive than sweet talk could ever be. Warm lips engulfed mine and I was lost again.
It was a long time before we let each other go.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Edward Cullen stomped through the woods towards the family mansion in a complete and utter tizzy. His skin was still sealing together in cracks and fissures which grated against his sensitive and nearly steaming ears. What had healed revealed white, hideous lines that would send all other vampires into a complete shock that he'd actually been put back together again. They weren't bite marks like Jasper's scars, but were instead insistent reminders that he'd spent the better part of a month stuck in a bag.
It never would've happened if it hadn't been for his delinquent, immoral, classless brother.
Throughout his extremely thorough and agonizing torture, the damn harpy had never let him forget that it was all solely to obtain possession of Major Jasper Whitlock's loyalty and love. As he had repeatedly been reassembled and dismantled, all Maria had been capable of was thoughts of Jasper and all of the misdeeds he'd performed for her. The endless sea of death and torture and servitude and debauchery that his supposed brother had dished out on behalf of the sick, awful devil who controlled every aspect of Edward's misery.
It made Edward Cullen regret the day that he'd ever seen the good in Jasper.
The coven belonged to him in a way that it would never for the others save Carlisle. It was he who warned them when they'd stayed in one area for too long and he almost never slipped from the diet. Unlike Jasper, whose flimsy control had threatened their family's very way of life and morals for decades. It'd been foolish of him to convince a reluctant Carlisle to accept Jasper into the family and it was beyond messed up that the arrogant man had the charisma to implant himself into the family much more efficiently than Edward ever had.
He continued his extremely loud trek through the woods before the house finally came into his view. With its prestigious pillars and elegance, he couldn't help but sigh his relief. It'd been absolute torture to withstand Esme's more adventurous cottage design choices. Sure, it'd been nice to allow the vampire to mother over him since all the others tended to be less sympathetic, but the tiny rooms and homey touches made Edward feel slightly queasy.
She was just about the only other of their family who he approved of besides Carlisle at this point. Rosalie and Emmett were just as about as shameless as Jasper was.
Edward finally quieted his stomps as he entered the mansion's front parlor, forcibly suppressing his rage as he felt his empathetic brother's presence. He could hear the fluttering, feathery heartbeat of Mary Swan and it took all of his willpower not to drive his fist through a wall.
"Son, are you doing all right?" Carlisle was by his side in a millisecond, concern etched into every corner of his face and mouth. His butterscotch eyes skimmed over him, only lingering on the white scars and gaps for the barest of moments.
He gradually relaxed his fist as the other man's thoughts, practical and wise, flowed over him. Carlisle was sure to understand his plight. "I just wanted to stay clear of the dog... Isabella hardly needs the stress at this point." And he could hardly stand the fucking stench.
Carlisle's eyes narrowed in obvious irritation. "I tried convincing Jasper that it'd be best to stick to the treaty, but he insisted that we owed her a favor." He ran a distracted hand through his movie-star hair. "How is she coping?"
Carlisle's underlying bitterness that Jasper had disregarded his judgement in Changing Isabella did not escape his favorite son's attention.
Edward gave out a huff of laughter. It wasn't happy. "About as well I did in the beginning." He confirmed with an eye roll. "I can't read her mind like everyone else, but she refuses to hunt and struggles to conceal her strength. It'll take awhile before she can be around humans again." His chest secretly ached at the loss of her innocence and blood.
"Have you noticed-" The doctor's frown tightened in concern. "anything strange about Bella?"
"Not anything beyond typical newborn growing pains, why do you ask?"
"Esme called me begging to invite Eleazar to fly over and see the girl. She wouldn't tell me what happened."
Silence fell between them before Edward went stock still as though they were about to be attacked. He looked terrified. "For the love of God, don't tell me the girl is absurdly gifted right when the Volturi are going to be snooping around. As though Aro wasn't obsessed with us enough. The odds of me being a free man at the end of these six months are already exponentially small."
They both conveniently ignored the fact that the ginger seemed more concerned about himself than Bella.
Bitterness gone, Carlisle had a look of hopeless despair on his face as he looked at his son. "It was all I could do the last time we saw the Guard to stop Aro from having you escorted away. And we face execution if we flee the area after so many newborns were Made. But you're right..." His face grew pensive. "Bella could see ghosts while she was alive. That alone will excite Aro, though I doubt the skill will be all that useful for anything except information gathering. Now seeing the future on the other hand..." He glanced speculatively over to the room where Mary's pealing laughter emanated from.
"It would be invaluable." Edward felt a twinge of inspiration through the fear as his father's thoughts took an identical direction as his own. "A trade of two for one? The family isn't all that attached to them yet."
It was only logical. What was a few months' acquaintance to immortals? It was inevitable that the others would be upset, but eventually all would be forgotten and forgiven.
I can't think of any other way to save you. Carlisle confirmed mentally. He had the grace to look guilty, but as soon as he thought of Edward's fate, the emotion was buried.
And all we have to be able to do is to stop Jasper from interfering. The ginger virgin was ecstatic when he came up with a nifty plan to rid himself of Major Jasper Whitlock for good. If there was anything that he'd become particularly adept at as a mindreader, it was manipulation.
Little did he know that the one exception to his ability had heard every spoken word of their conversation.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••
Leah suppressed a growl as Bella crept along the fancy-ass patio. She'd insisted that the werewolf stay out in the woods so that she could sneak into the house without Edward 'hearing' thoughts.
The gifted aspect of some vampires had been an unwelcome revelation, but she stayed back as far as possible in the woods and tried to keep her mind blank. A month of running in wolf-form with Sam had been great practice. In normal circumstances, the she-wolf wouldn't be able to let her imprint away from her side, but Bella needed her sister and so the drive to fulfill that need had literally tied her paws on the matter.
Besides, it seemed like a harmless enough request given that Mary was guarded by a very protective and scary Jasper.
Sun rays slowly advanced over the Cullen's well-manicured lawn as the cloud coverage broke. It hit a wide-eyed Bella even as she hugged her body against the white brick of the mansion. She couldn't help releasing a tiny huff of amusement as the rays finally reached her imprint's bare arms.
Bella looked like a disco ball. The light danced against the white brick in a hilarious salute to the rain finally ceasing. Luckily for her, she wasn't near any of the windows and the reflected rays didn't travel far. It wasn't quite evident how they were going to see Mary, as Leah suspected that Bella's plan was to bust into the fortress and scare the living daylights out of her sister.
So due to the thoughtlessness of this plan, it surprised Leah when Bella turned back from the patio after about five minutes of playing sentry and sprinted past her.
The pure speed was faster than anything she'd ever seen, and it made the caution that the other vampires had been applying to Bella make more sense. It made her wish that she'd thought to ask Jasper more questions about newborns and what to expect.
Panic set in as she hauled ass as fast as she could through the trees and prickly underbrush at a breakneck pace. She was too fast, too strong to even keep within eyesight. Leah depended on her nose, determined to keep up. They were well past Forks at this point, and terror began to leak through her bones when the treaty line's all too familiar scent hit her nostrils.
Bella, NO! Leah howled internally. She wouldn't be able to take out Sam if he phased in, wouldn't be able to stop the small brunette vampire from harming a human without tearing her soul out.
The only saving grace was that her imprint stuck towards the ocean-side.
Fuck no. The she-wolf dug her paws into the earth to stop from plummeting off the sharp cliff that fell into the sea. Her scent fell off in a jagged confirmation and the cracking in Leah's chest confirmed the worst of realities.
Her imprint didn't want her. With little choice in the matter, the silver wolf curled into a ball and collapsed onto herself in despair.
•••••••••••••••
Jasper's handsome face seemed to dim a little when he walked me to the door. The day had already faded into a misty, crisp night, and the tiny half-sliver of the moon caught my eye as we walked from his seriously nice car to the less glamorous sight of the front porch. The moon reminded me of its strange ability to wane and wax, and all of its phases that were crystalline in my brain.
Of course, you'd remember something so worthless. A strange mental voice berated me.
I frowned and couldn't resist the urge to defend myself to the pissy voice. Well if you have time to insult me, could you fucking tell me what I've forgotten?
"Hey." A cool hand pressed against the top of my head and succeeded in dragging me away from my internal catfight. "Chill out, little lady." It was easy to hear the smile in his voice.
Of course, he always knew when I was being weird. "How you know everything, Jazz?" I peered up at him while resisting the urge to hug him and plead that he not make me leave him for the night. Call me pathetic, but being around him for the day had settled me more than anything else anybody had tried over the past week. Him leaving me felt like cruel punishment.
His lips curled sexily as though he knew exactly how I was feeling. "Funny," he murmured wickedly slow, "but I always used to ask you that same question."
He looked around as if checking nobody else was around, and then he picked me up by the waist as though I weighed nothing to him. Tight against his body like he wanted me to remember every detail of him for the next decade. Then he kissed me.
If the other times that we kissed had burned me, this one engulfed me in lava. I gasped against him and did my best to hold my own. But before it could get any heavier, he put me down gently and held open the door. It was weird, but his eyes, typically a warm honey, had gone a dangerous black that sent shivers down my spine. "I've gotta let ya go for the night, darlin'." He said with sad twist on his face.
"All right." I leaned against him briefly and glanced at him one last time before finally entering the house. His car sped off in a great roar of sound that let me know that he'd definitely driven way more reasonably when I'd been a passenger. The thought of him wrecking had me frowning as Charlie absentmindedly greeted me from his chair in the messy living room. He looked pretty drunk and sad, and I secretly worried that leaving him alone for the day had been more than a little cruel.
I tried my best to shove all of those negative feelings away from myself as I tiredly got dressed for bed and plopped onto my comfy mattress. It always cheered me up to see the silly boy band poster directly above my bed, like it gave me a glimpse into the frivolous and carefree girl that so many people had described to me. After a few more minutes of this pointless brooding, sleep finally stole me away.
I kind of wonder what she was like... The last minute sentiment went by unappreciated. It was nice to finally stop thinking.
Three hours later...
Something feathery and soft hit my face, but it still forced me to groan and flutter my eyelids open like a groggy elderly person. What the hell? I turned my face slowly to see a Pokemon stuffed animal that had definitely not been in my room before lying haphazardly over my pillow. Had that woken me up? It was almost like...
This time it was a rainbow-colored unicorn that hit me in the face. What the fuck?! My heart sped up when my dumb brain finally acknowledged that someone was in my room.
"W-who's there?!" My voice shook out the question as the shadows danced onto my walls from my window. I frantically scanned for the serial teddy-bear thrower.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that the perpetrator had glowing, red demon eyes.
A shriek rose in my throat as suddenly a familiar, inhumanely pale girl stepped out of the shadows. Her short, dark curtain of hair hung around her face like the Grudge, but it was the haunting fear on her face that really sold the nightmare.
I was so close to being able to make a sound when she finally spoke. "Mary, please please don't scream." She whispered. "Dad will probably have a heart attack if he sees me."
The last part of her sentence somewhat echoed around me as I fainted.