Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just playing with her characters. Also, I did not come up with Jasper as the God of War or of Peter 'just knowing shit'. Those ideas belongs to IdreamofEddy.

A/N: Thank you to my amazing beta and wonderful friend Laurie Whitlock, my pre-readers, the awesome AlwaysJASPERsLOVE and Shadman, and Shelljayz, my beloved sister who pre-reads and does a million other things for this story that I can't properly name. Thank you to shirleypositive72 for her story The Lists and the Facebook group she created for it. Thank you to hiddenfanggirl16 for making sure I didn't get any details about Louisville wrong, and thank you also to Ellie Wolf for the banner she made for this story.

Merry Christmas everyone! If you don't celebrate Christmas, then Happy/Merry ::insert whatever holiday you celebrate here::! I hope that this time of year is going well for you all. If you are travelling, I hope you stay safe. Hell, even if you aren't travelling I hope you stay safe. I am in California right now with my sister (fantastic mother, fellow twi-hard, pre-reader, idea bouncer-offer, obsessive compulsive decorator and one of my best friends), brother in-law (aka smartass extraordinaire but without whom I would not have passed my interpersonal communication final, and admittedly awesome dad), and my beautiful, brilliant, adorable niece Charlotte Rose who will be 2 on Christmas Day. I get to see her on Christmas morning, and it's the first Christmas she will really understand the whole process, so I'm really excited. I hope you have just as much to be excited about! :)

Now, we head into the conclusion of Bella's thoughts on her time with Jasper in the alley, and beyond.

Chapter 16

oOo

September 2080

BPOV

Just as his lips were about to touch mine two drunken idiots stumbled down the alley and stopped not far from us. One of them immediately proceeded to vomit in great gushing spasms that looked almost painful. It made me angry because I knew that the two of them were customers of Sharon's and they were long passed the point at which they should have been cut off. I also remembered that they'd been buying her drinks all night even though she wasn't allowed to drink on the job. Christian had rules about that, and in order to discourage it, he docked the pay of the bartender guilty of it triple the worth of the drink, but if they did it on the sly and the drinks were paid for Christian had no reason to suspect anything when he compared actual alcohol inventory to inventory needed. Sharon was not afraid to flirt to get gullible drunk men to buy those drinks for her, and I knew she hadn't cut them off because cutting them off meant cutting herself off. If Christian ever found out she did this, he would fucking flip. He wouldn't dock her pay or give her a warning first, he would just flat out fire her ass. There were times I wondered if that was why she did it.

None of the vomit actually got on Jasper or me, but the presence of the two drunkards, as well as the sound and smell of the retching, brought me back to my senses. I had come to this alcove to be alone and to pretend that the bar didn't exist. Those two assholes had thoroughly shattered that illusion, reminding me why doing anything at all with Jasper Cullen; sexual or not, was a bad fucking idea. There was a part of me that had been a little sad that what had been going on between us had been interrupted, but no matter how much I empathized with Jasper, comforting him wasn't my job. He was annoying and infuriating, and letting myself go through with the idiot decision I'd made to connect with him was against the rules. No attachments. That's how my life worked, that was how my life would always work. I wasn't going to let him screw that up, so really our two crashers had done me a favor.

Jasper and I jumped apart like we'd been burned by each other's touch and I was glad because there had needed to be distance between us. If there hadn't been, I don't know what I would have done; if I could have stopped myself from pulling him against me and picking up where we'd left off, even though I knew what a bad idea it was. That pissed me off to no end. Being around him completely fucked with my head and I was always so close to losing control when he was near. As I've said over and over, I didn't like surrendering control to anyone or anything. I know I can't control everything, I do; but I could control my body and my decisions and his presence was messing that up. I hated him for it.

Still, I hadn't been able to bring myself to leave, and he hadn't left either. Even though we weren't looking at each other right then, I knew what I would have seen if I had been. There would have been a challenge in his eyes, daring me to be the first one to go, to break. I would not do that. If I could survive all the "preparation" Project Apotheosis had put me through to make sure I didn't cave to the enemy and give away valuable information in the event of capture, I sure as hell wasn't going to break because of a boy; no matter how beautiful he was or that he'd made me feel things I had never felt before. Of course, there was the distinct possibility that he hadn't been responsible for what I'd felt. Maybe my epiphany all those weeks before had just made me so desperate for some sort of intimacy that I'd only jumped at the chance to be with him because he was familiar to me but at the same time not. Either way I didn't back down from challenges, so until he made a move to leave neither would I.

As we'd silently waited for our unwanted interlopers to get a handle on themselves, I'd pretended that his hands on me had made my skin crawl the way it did when anyone else touched me instead of lighting me on fire. The continued ache between my thighs made it extremely hard to convince myself of that, but I managed it to a certain extent. It did take the edge off enough that I lost the urge to pin him to the wall again. I couldn't help but notice that he was having the same issue by the still somewhat evident bulge in his jeans, which made me feel a little better.

Thankfully, when they finally did leave I managed to stick to my guns and not re-initiate things between us, making me feel even better that I hadn't totally lost control of myself and my resolve. Until then, I hadn't been certain I would be able to hold to that decision which, of course, pissed me the fuck off. He hadn't made any move to pick things up where we left off either, and I was relieved. There was a stab of hurt and disappointment there too when I realized he'd had no intention of making a move though, and I, yet again, found myself confused.

I had tried to read him after that; once again hoping that I could find something in his eyes or body language that might tell me what he'd been thinking … and once again, I'd come up empty handed. It made me want to scream. Everything about Jasper Cullen made me want to scream.

Knowing that continuing to try to figure him out by silent observation would be a waste of time, I decided to see if conversation might give me some sort of clue as to what was going on in his head. All I really wanted was to figure him out, but he was like a fucking puzzle and I was missing 95% of the pieces.

Focusing back on the few words we had exchanged, I hadn't been able to pass up the opportunity to irritate him. Pulling from those bits of conversation, I tried to extract the information I wanted. Two birds, one stone.

Jasper's unapologetic honesty when I'd called him out on being a cocky son of a bitch after he'd made the, "If I was stalkin' you, you wouldn't know it until I moved in for the kill," comment was the perfect segue. The fact that he'd both ignored my query and seemed unaffected by it had me spitting mad, as he was so damn good at making me. Why did he have to be so fucking frustrating? I had never come across anyone who didn't ultimately give me the information I wanted, but he seemed to be immune. Well, psychologically speaking at any rate … physically not so much, unless that whole pinning me to the wall business had been just as much of a fluke for him as it had been for me. The idea that I was just a warm body he could use to get off made me feel like shit, but then I remembered those times he'd looked at me all desperate and pleading; like he had actually given a fuck about my feelings. I pushed all that aside though. As much as it might have hurt me to think it, convincing myself he was just out to use me was so much easier than contemplating the alternative. It was less confusing, and there was more evidence to support that theory than there was to support the other one.

When he had asked me why I'd called him Texas, I hadn't known what to tell him. I'd lived in Texas a couple times, and while there were subtle differences between certain areas, there was still an underlying unity to their tone of voice. It was the same with most accents of people that lived in the same state or area, no matter where they came from. Some Southern accents had very evident differences depending on the state a person came from, but most deviations were nuanced in ways that only I, with my superhuman hearing, could pick up on. That was how I knew he was from Texas; most likely the Houston area since that was one of the places I'd lived, but I couldn't tell him that. I'd had to leave my answer vague and noncommittal. Most answers I gave were, and that's how I liked them to be.

When he'd asked me what I'd been doing in Louisville, I'd rolled my eyes. He wasn't supposed to turn things around on me, and honestly, what the fuck did he think I was doing here? He had just spent two hours watching me bartend and waitress, which pretty much screamed that I lived here. Not only was he annoying, he was a damn idiot. It did give me a smooth excuse to again ask him what he'd been doing in Louisville. A road trip taken by himself had certainly not been the answer I was expecting to hear, but if Dr. and Mrs. Cullen allowed romantic relationships between the teenagers living underneath their roof, it wasn't too far of a stretch that they'd let another of their children take a cross-country road trip alone.

Jasper's laughter had surprised me. I had expected him to get angry with me for insulting his parents since I so easily seemed to draw his anger out, but I was glad that hadn't been the result. I hadn't been in the mood for that shit. Personally, I hadn't thought what I'd said was all that funny, just truthful; but I was glad I'd said it whether it had been funny or not. That laughter of his was a deep, rich Texan honey, infectious and musical - beautiful, just like the rest of him. It had made me want to laugh with him, but I hadn't. I wouldn't let him know that I enjoyed hearing his laughter. Liking the sound of it didn't mean anything.

Asking if I'd moved to Louisville because it was so opposite of Forks was a question I couldn't really answer. Where I lived had always been based on whether a city felt like it might be a good fit which, in turn, was based on several factors: population size (sometimes larger was better, sometimes smaller was a better fit), whether or not it provided more than one handy means of escape (a girl had to have options), the availability of jobs where employers wouldn't ask many questions about who I was or where I came from, if there was an abundance of cheap motels or abandoned buildings (houses, apartments, warehouses) that I could use to squat in, and whether or not it remained absolutely random in comparison to the places I had lived previously. I tried to follow that model while never making an actual conscious choice about which state or what city I would live in next. I always traveled in a random fashion and stopped if a place felt right and fit those criteria. Establishing a pattern of where I chose to live was a huge no-no. Giving Project Apotheosis any chance of predicting where I might go next was asking to get caught. Most of the time, there had never been any sign of hunters in any of the places I'd chosen to live, though there had been a few close calls - like British Columbia. Even so, it was still better to leave things vague. If they had to search multiple cities under the suspicion that I might be in one of them based on that vagueness, the less man power they'd have to hunt me down if they actually managed to pick the right one.

There was some part of the truth I could tell Jasper though. A grain of truth could go a long way in getting someone to trust you enough to tell you what you wanted to know, and I needed to know what he was doing in Louisville. The likelihood of him just happening to take a road trip to the place I'd settled after breaking in to his house, liberal parents or no, was slim. I didn't believe in coincidence, I would be stupid to and stupid I was not, but at that point I hadn't known what to believe. I knew the Cullens had no idea where I came from; therefore, they had no incentive to try to send me back. As infuriating as Dr. and Mrs. Cullen's attempt to put me into the foster system had been, now that there was some distance between then and now, I could admit that it had only been a misguided attempt to show me that they cared about my welfare. That didn't make me any less angry with them for thinking they had the right to interfere in my life, but dwelling on it wouldn't change anything, and it didn't change that Jasper's presence in Louisville left me fucking unnerved.

Every word that came out of Jasper's mouth had me forgetting; just a little, that the point of our conversation was to pump him for information. There had still been a part of me that wanted to pump something else of his, and it was nowhere near his mouth. Plus, even though he was an annoying bastard who frustrated and pissed me off in equal measure, he was exasperatingly easy to talk to.

Teasing Jasper about knowing nothing about girls had been a way to irritate him, but ultimately all it had done was give him an excuse to be smug about how good he was at the things he'd done to me when he'd had me pressed up against that wall. The reminder of that had caused a physical reaction that I hadn't been able to stop. Why was it that when I was around him, all those hours of training I'd endured to keep my heart at a rate of my choosing went down the shitter? Maybe it had only been a slight acceleration, but it annoyed the hell out of me. I hated him.

I'd had to get him off that subject before I did something stupid, so I'd fed him that grain of truth and told him I'd moved to Louisville because of the horses. Of course, the jackass had to be sarcastic about it when I had told him, so I had picked up the cigarette I had dropped and started to twirl it effortlessly between my fingers. My other option had been to choke him to death, but I hadn't been in the mood to hide a body.

Picking up that cigarette had been a mistake, though I hadn't realized just how big of one it was until later that early morning.

Our conversation had taken an uncomfortable turn after I'd picked up that cigarette. Jasper had wanted to know why I'd had it if I wasn't going to smoke it, which inevitably led to him asking how I had managed to get a job at a bar when I was only 16. I'd tried to be evasive about answering, dumb even, but the fucker would not drop the subject. I was pretty sure he could tell just how uncomfortable it had made me too, but that hadn't seemed to matter to him. He seemed to take as much pleasure in irritating me as I did in doing it to him. While I was angry as hell with him, I had a hell of a lot of fun taking a jab at him for being a rich, entitled bastard to get back at him for it; whether he actually was one or not. I didn't think he was, but he didn't need to know that.

He hadn't taken the bait; instead taking it in stride and leaving me both frustrated and disappointed as well as feeling the standard anger he was constantly evoking in me. When he had told me he was impressed by the fact that I'd managed to land a job at a bar when I was only 16 it hadn't sunk in at first, so lost had I been in that anger. Also, I'd gotten distracted by that sexy accent of his. When his praise had registered it had confused me just the way everything about him did when he wasn't pissing me the fuck off.

I hadn't been pleased when Sharon showed up in my alcove not long after that. I had still been furious with her for her carelessness with the two men that had disrupted my time with Jasper. It was our responsibility to ensure the safety of our customers; instead, she had taken advantage of them. I'd had every intention of ripping into her for it, but before I had gotten a chance to she had started screaming at me for taking an extended break. I had been at the bar since five that afternoon and hadn't stopped working in the eight hours since whereas she had taken four breaks and a lunch with only six hours on the clock. When she then had the gall to accuse me of taking advantage of Christian and pawning my work off on her and Ashley, I'd snapped. I never fucking snapped! I was always cool as a goddamn cucumber, but that night I had been all out of sorts and acting completely out of character. There had only been one factor that was different - Jasper fucking Cullen. I blamed him for my shredded nerves, but in that moment, I had been way more angry with Sharon; so I let her have it, calling her out on the real reason for her sour mood ... Christian. She'd been in love with him for a long time, but he had never noticed and it had made her bitter. I was pretty sure that was why she drank so much on the job. I imagined seeing someone you cared about in that way and knowing that they didn't reciprocate was painful; that being forced to watch as that person flirted with other people was downright excruciating. Whether it was painful or not, it didn't give her the right to take it out on me.

I'd expected her to scream at me for calling her out but I hadn't been the only one acting out of character that night. When she had turned on her heel without so much as a snide comment, I knew something had been seriously wrong with her. She had always been fiercely hostile to anyone that dared to imply that she had feelings for our boss, and even though she wasn't my favorite person in the world, her relatively mild-mannered reaction to my direct, unyielding statement about it rather than a roundabout insinuation worried me.

I'd voiced my concern, more to myself than Jasper, whom I'd nearly forgotten was in the alcove with me. As much as I may have wanted to, it was absolutely impossible for me to forget him at all. The most logical conclusion had been that someone had slipped something in one of Sharon's drinks. Her drinking may have been unknown to Christian, but it wasn't to anyone else, especially the male customers whom she made a habit of bedding since she couldn't have who she really wanted. I had noticed that that night she had been pretty firmly making it clear to her usual hook-ups that she was keeping her legs closed, and the guys she generally fucked weren't the most upstanding of citizens. I wouldn't have put it passed one of them to drug her to get his way. Had the idea occurred to me before she'd left, a deep inhale could have confirmed it. My sense of smell was keen enough that I would have been able to discern if there were drugs in her system. I had to keep an eye on her. No matter our issues, no one deserved to fall prey to a sexual predator.

Jasper's indifferent attitude toward the situation both disappointed and incensed me. Didn't he care at all? It was Christian's job to look after his employees, especially in a situation like that one. However, if I was right, Sharon shouldn't have had to deal with the trauma of being drugged and what could have come of that, and her feelings for Christian and his inevitable clueless insensitivity. Maybe telling him he had no idea how to love woman had been a cheap shot, but I hadn't cared at the time. I'd been so angry with him for not giving a shit, I'd gotten a little vindictive. Besides, it wasn't like he'd actually shown he had any clue about it.

I'd seen Jasper angry, several times, in fact. I was quite good at bringing it out in him, but I had never seen him so furious. When he pinned me to the wall again, his intent had not been sexual, it had been murderous. His golden eyes had again gone black and they were glittering with malice and a rage so powerful I'd never seen the likes of it before. When he'd spoken in that low, dangerous tone, telling me I didn't know anything about him, I knew I had taken things too far, and I had been so ashamed of myself because I had no right to make any judgments or assumptions about a guy I hardly knew. I wouldn't have wanted him to do that in regard to me. Shame had only been my underlying emotion though. As hard as it is for me to admit as I lie here in the morgue, my primary emotion was fear.

I have come face-to-face with many, many terrifying things in the near 17 years I've been alive; things no person of any age should ever have to face. I had not been afraid of most of those things, and if I had, I'd been exposed to them over and over again until I no longer was. Of all of those terrifying things, Jasper Cullen, in that moment, was the scariest one I had ever encountered. The leonine power I had observed in him the first time we'd met was practically radiating out of him, enveloping me in his fury like a suffocating blanket. It may as well have been his rage pinning me to that wall rather than his arms caging me in. I hadn't known what the fuck that was or how he'd so forcefully pushed the emotion he'd been feeling onto me, but that, in conjunction with the dangerous air about him, had caused a visceral reaction in me. All the trappings of fear had invaded my body from the increased heart rate to the dilated pupils.

His confirmation that I shouldn't have made assumptions was something I'd expected, but I'd already figured that out. I hadn't needed him to remind me of it since I felt bad enough about it already. Mostly though, the longer he kept me pinned to that wall and the longer I felt the effects of that fear, the more my anger boiled beneath my skin. I did not do fear. He would not change that. I wouldn't let him change that, so I had done what I always do when faced with something that scared me: I pushed passed it. Focusing on my anger instead, I pushed him off me ... or tried to. It hadn't worked the way it should have. Granted, it's not like I pushed the guy hard enough to send him through the opposite wall but he should have gone back a hell of a lot farther than a few inches away from me. It just made me angrier and I started spouting off about kneeing him in the balls.

A little more heated back and forth between the two of us and the next thing I knew, Jasper had thrown my words about knowing nothing about the opposite sex in my face. One sentence, one fucking sentence, and it was like we'd never been fighting in the first place. All the anger I'd felt toward him faded away and I hadn't been sure why. Luckily, he'd seemed just as confused as I was.

Still, confused or not, he'd pulled me close to him as though he hadn't been able to help it. It was an almost mindless gesture, and I had wanted to know why he'd done it. He had looked so vulnerable, just as he had when he'd practically begged me with his eyes to stop him from stealing my virtue, and I had thought that I might be able to see into him the way I had when he had gotten that way before. I couldn't.

I couldn't put off going back to work any longer after that, but I hadn't been able to resist fucking with Jasper one last time. We would never see each other again once I had gone back, after all, and I did so love to piss him off. Pretending as though I was going to kiss him and leaving him hanging; karma if you will, had seemed like the perfect way to do it. The fact that he had laughed instead hadn't bothered me. If that beautiful laugh of his was what I was left with to remember him by, I had been more than okay with that. It was far better than remembering him for how much he infuriated me.

I'd been more pleased than I should have been when he had told me he had lied about me being mediocre, and I had found it much harder to walk away from him than I ever would have thought.

oOo

The last hour before The Finish Line closed was bustling. It was a Friday and a payday at that, and all our diehard regulars had been eager to drown their sorrows or let loose by spending a good chunk of their paychecks on liquor. We also had a fair amount of college kids sticking around until the last second, trying to make the most of one of their last weekends of partying before they returned to school and had to hit the books.

I had been able to put my worries about Sharon to rest as soon as I walked back into the bar. She hadn't smelled of the distinct bitterness that would have been present if drugs were in her system. Other than being insufferably sullen and bitter, which was normal for her, she was fine. I had still kept an eye on her just in case. I liked having multiple things to concentrate on anyway so, unbeknownst to her, it was win-win.

The rest of the night had been normal as opposed to the rest of my shift ... until right after last call was announced fifteen minutes before we closed.

-Flashback-

I'd just served Tommy, a sweet-natured man who had recently become a regular of mine after walking in on his wife in bed with his best friend. As I had placed his two fingers of single malt scotch in front of him, Christian had come up behind me. I could feel him there before he had cleared his throat and I wasn't in the mood for whatever it was he wanted. I was itchy and restless again, and my chest was bugging me.

Taking a deep breath, I thought of Wildfire so the smile tugging at my lips was genuine and turned to face him. "What's up boss man?"

"Can we talk?" he asked, shifting his feet nervously.

I frowned, not having a clue what he would be nervous for. We'd talked dozens of times in the three weeks I'd worked for him. "Uh, sure."

Christian motioned for me to follow him to the kitchen. I cocked a brow at him, redirecting my gaze at all the customers trying to settle their tabs.

"Sharon and Ashley can handle that," he told me firmly.

I nodded and followed him to the kitchen without questioning him further.

When he turned around to look at me, he was twisting his hands, "You see, that's one of the things I love about you - the way you can communicate without having to say a word."

"Alright," I said, bewildered, not sure where he was going with this. It was an odd thing to say.

"Look Paige," he said, "I was wondering if you wanted to have a drink with me."

My eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, "Christian, what-"

The confusion must have read like a neon sign on my forehead because he didn't let me finish, "I like you as more than a friend Paige. I've liked you since the first time your Royal Flush beat my straight. I want you to have a drink with me just the two of us."

I frowned again, trying to process this. Christian liked me? How did I miss that? Sure when we'd first met there had been some innuendo, but I had thought that was just a ploy to get me in for an interview. Apparently not. "You want to have a drink with me," I said slowly. "Like a date."

Christian smiled, relieved, "Yeah, like a date."

Shit! I cursed internally. Shit! Shit! Shit!

I didn't know what to do. I had never been asked on a date before. Christian was attractive and nice, but he was almost six years older than I was. Of all the reasons Christian asking me out was an utter fiasco though, his age was the one that mattered the least. I just didn't date. I could never be honest with any guy I decided to date and relationships were supposed to be based on trust. I couldn't trust anyone. It was one thing to tell a lie here and there for the purposes of survival though I tried my best to be more evasive than dishonest in most cases. It was entirely another to feed a person I could grow to care about a continuous stream of lies. The fact that any trust a guy might think he had in me wouldn't be genuine and that he wouldn't even know it wouldn't be fair, and that wasn't something I could do. Plus, as hot as Christian was, I just wasn't feeling the attraction he apparently felt for me. How do you tell a person that though? Maybe if I avoided it?

"I don't drink, Christian," I said, trying to sound apologetic and I guess, in a way, I was. Normally I wouldn't have bothered with niceties, but I was out of my element and my drill sergeants had not prepared me for this shit! If I had stayed at Project Apotheosis I'm sure it would have come up eventually, but I was shit out of luck at the moment.

"We can do whatever you want," he responded, succeeding in not sounding overly eager. Now that he had gotten through the initial proposal it appeared his nerves had dissipated, and his easy charm and confidence had returned. He was in smooth bastard mode.

"Uh, right," I said lamely. "The thing is-"

Christian just grinned knowingly at me, "It's an open invitation, Paige. You don't have to decide right now. Just let me know."

I just stood there, my mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water which was exactly what I felt like. Christian chuckled before reaching over, gently pushing my mouth shut with his index and middle fingers and holding it in place presumably until I remembered how to keep it that way on my own. Then he ran his thumb over my cheekbone, a little smile on his lips, and left the kitchen to go help in closing out the bar.

I shuddered and shook. Even the touch of only two of his fingers to my skin had me feeling like a horde of ants had crawled just beneath it and started clog dancing. Between an ungodly number of bar patrons forgetting polite etiquette about boundaries through the haze of booze clouding their brains, Christian getting awfully comfortable violating my personal space, and Jasper's wandering hands; no matter how good they had felt, I had been touched too much tonight. I was at my limit suddenly, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be sucked back into memories it would be hard to pull myself out of. I could fight it, for now, but I wouldn't be able to stave it off forever. I just needed to make sure I made it back to my shit motel before I was dragged under, especially now that I knew how Christian felt about me. I clenched my eyes shut, inhaled deeply, and tried to picture something happy. I had expected Wildfire to be the image that popped into my head. Instead, in vivid technicolor, was an image of the perfection that was Jasper fucking Cullen's face.

Dammit! Why can't I just get you out of my goddamn head?! I yelled at him. I had to yell at him. The fucker's smile got all smug so what else was I supposed to do? I felt the anger starting to creep up on me, but pushed it back. Anger is not good for you right now, Bella, I told myself, and it wouldn't be. It always started out as memories, and sometimes that's all they were, but other times they evolved into hallucinations. Intense emotion before I got into the throes only made things worse for me. I had to finish closing up the bar and head somewhere remote before I lost my shit. Though I'd initially hoped for the sleazy familiarity of my motel, it had thin walls, and I could tell things were going to be particularly bad this time. Bad meant loud, and I didn't want to draw that kind of attention. If it's Jasper's face that brings you peace right now just go with it. You can let it piss you off later.

Continuing with my deep breathing and doing my best to fight off the dizziness and headache that were the first signs of one of my episodes, I went back out front to do my part in closing up just like everyone else on shift.

It only partially registered when I heard Christian ask, "Where's Sharon?"

"She said she needed some air," Ashley responded.

"She say why?" he pressed.

"Nope," Ashley said in annoyance. "She seemed fine though so can we all just focus on gettin' this place shut down for the night? I've got plans."

I noticed vaguely that Sharon slipped back inside a couple minutes after this exchange. Another couple minutes went by before the yelling started.

A drunken brawl had broken out between two of our college boy customers and things were quickly getting out of hand. Ordinarily, I might have considered waiting for Todd, our bouncer, to handle the situation, but I needed something to help me focus a little better. I was losing the battle to hold off the memories until I got somewhere private and there was nothing quite like a little violence to sharpen your senses and wake you the fuck up. I did realize that it was an ironic and counterproductive strategy since the memories I was fighting so hard to keep in check were rooted in violence, but the two situations were so different from each other both in purpose and causation that they pretty much lived in separate hemispheres. That being said, I had them pulled apart in a matter of seconds, subduing one while Todd held back the other.

The dizziness was getting worse, and the itching, restlessness, and tightness in my chest weren't helping. Still, I held fast to the struggling, drunk young man that had at least six inches and eighty pounds on me rather easily. My condition was deteriorating rapidly though, blackness creeping up around the edges of my vision and little snippets of horrors past flashed behind my eyelids every few seconds.

I was relieved when the cops showed up to take the two douchebags to the drunk tank. What I was not expecting was to be wrenched away from the douchebag I'd been restraining, shoved up against the side of the bar face first, and to feel the cold steel of handcuffs as they were clapped on my wrists.

"Paige Donnelly you're under arrest ..."

oOo

A/N: Okay, ladies and gents, Bella has been arrested! Any theories as to why?

As always, I would love to know what you think!

Until next time ...