Welcome to the start of my favorite chapters a.k.a. Twitch's Super Self-Indulgent Installments Where She Should've Been Writing Her Original Work BUT We're Here Instead

a.k.a. I'm Back on My Bullshit

When I tell you I've been the most hype about Blaire and Jasper's reunion, I mean it.

Super relieved I pushed through that last chapter, because this is where the fun is gonna start!

6. TURNABOUTS FAIR PLAY

RIPPING OFF A VAMPIRE'S HEAD didn't kill them. It would take a lot of blood, probably ten times the amount I needed with my arm, but James could still be put back together if I stopped with his head.

So I didn't.

I tore James limb from limb until he was nothing more than tiny, indiscernible pieces. The squeals of his flesh being peeled away and the loud, abrupt pops! of pulling his limbs out from his torso filled my ears. I didn't hear anything else. I didn't want to.

The noises drowned out the memories of James's constant jeering still playing on a loop in my head. His boasting. His condescending, "Oh, Blaire," and his congenial, "Kill them." I tore the world apart for him for only a few days, but he made it feel like centuries. I hoped I could replace all of those terrible, never-ending, forever wide awake, and fully present minutes I had to endure with him.

Victoria wailed and screamed, begging for me to stop, promising I would live an eternity of peace if I spared them both. She tried to wrestle out from under the two vampires I still didn't know, but they held her firm. The female I didn't know had to look away, but the male watched me with grim, horrified fascination.

I never looked at Jasper. I didn't want to know what I would find if I did.

By the time I was satisfied, however long that actually took, Victoria wasn't fighting the two vampires anymore. Instead she trembled underneath them. She sobbed quietly, mumbling so low I couldn't even make out the words. I cocked my head to the side before I stood at my full height. I stepped over James's remains to meet her.

"Is she crying?" I asked her through my teeth. I crouched in front of her in the same moment, ignoring the other two vampires. "Do I make you nervous now?"

When I was closer, I could hear her words clearer. They were a low, steady chant.

"Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me."

As if I wasn't already planning on it. A snarl built up in my chest.

She didn't even meet my eyes. She just stared at the ground and kept begging me to kill her like it was some kind of prayer. Like it would be her salvation. Like she wanted to die.

Maybe she did. Maybe I actually managed to take everything away from her.

I was making her suffer.

I may have not trapped her under a lake, but she was trapped nonetheless. When she would look up, the sun would be just as distorted as it looked underwater. Her world would be forever altered because James wasn't in it anymore. Feral elation swept through me.

"Let her go," I said.

I won.

The female vampire I didn't know looked up at me first, eyes wide. I couldn't tell if it was with horror, disbelief, rage, or maybe all three. The male vampire looked at something past me, probably at the vampire behind me, before he straightened up. He nudged the sandy blonde female into standing as well.

I bared my teeth at Victoria. "You took everything from me."

Victoria struggled to her feet, shaking, her eyes empty with terror and a sadness so endless it sent chills through my frozen body. She stared at me with those eyes, but I stood tall. Resolute.

"And now you get to live with it."

I would kill her one day, but for now, I would torture her first.

I was a monster, after all. She and James made sure of that.

Victoria gave the pieces that were once James one last, long look, before she flew into the depths of the woods beyond us. She tore off with a speed that made the wind vortex for a second, then the world flattened out like nothing had happened at all.

There was only silence.

Until I heard a soft plastic plop, followed by the tang of gasoline, that made me turn around.

Jasper stood next to the chalky pile of what looked like broken marble, a small bottle of lighter fluid in hand. His gaze flicked up to meet mine, and I was lost in its deep blackness, until he turned his wrist and poured the fluid all over the pieces that had once been James.

Glug, glug, glug, glug.

The rhythmic pour felt as refreshing as diving underwater. Drowning everything out. Pushing the horror even further away.

Jasper didn't stop until all the lighter fluid had been poured out. He tossed the bottle a few feet behind him, while he reached into his pocket. Metal glinted under the moonlight. A lighter.

"Do you remember?" he asked me.

Somewhere, I did. Almost everything I learned about vampires when I was human were the easiest things to pull from the back of my mind. The only way to kill a vampire was to tear it apart and burn the pieces. I nodded, prompting him to toss the lighter at me. I caught it with ease.

Flink!

A small flame shot up. I marveled at the tiny spark that would end James forever.

I dropped the lighter on the pieces soaked in kerosene and couldn't help but think that while the horror was over, the nightmare that was the rest of my… existence… was only beginning.

Fire bloomed and stretched up in the sky. The warmth felt blistering on my sensitive skin, and it smelled… sweet and bitter. Like burnt orange peels. I let the crackling embers drive out every other noise and view. I watched the flames consume every part of James until there was nothing left but ash.

It could've taken minutes, or hours, until the world went dark again, but I refused to look away for a second. I needed to be sure it was ending. I needed to know it was over.

When there was nothing left but scorched earth and powder, I heard the whispers.

"… need to be careful."

That came from the strange male vampire.

I turned around.

Jasper and the other two vampires stood together, speaking so quickly and quietly I had trouble picking up what they were saying. And then I realized it was because most of it was in another language I barely recognized. Spanish… maybe?

"Ella necesita tiempo para adaptarse." The words struck me like a lightning bolt. Jasper's voice was deep, soft, and smooth. It commanded my attention as soon as the firt word left his mouth. Each one that slipped out after that from his lips, and the seductive lilt he wrapped each one with held me utterly transfixed. I wanted him. I wanted to know how those words would feel like against me, but I had no idea what to do about it. At least some things about me were still the same. Jasper finally looked at me, his brow quirked like he was asking me a question. "Yo confíno en ella."

He stepped away from the other vampires to meet me. Something like adrenaline spiked within me when he approached. Jasper seemed to answer it with gentleness and calm. Surety. God, I missed him so much.

And he was so handsome – I could see it even clearer now. With his rogue curls, his lean frame that exuded wild vitality, the scars that seemed to cover every inch of his body all only added to his attraction for me. They spoke of power. Of survival. Of strength.

They were things I needed. Wanted. Craved.

"Blaire…" he murmured.

I forgot my name could sound like that.

Soft. That it could still be whispered instead of screamed.

There were only six feet between us. He closed three of those in mere steps. Slowly, he reached out to me. I wanted to take his hand. He was only two steps away –

I flinched, darting back five feet, nearly ducking into a thicket of scraggly trees until I forced myself to stop. I still kept low to the ground when I faced him again. Why? Why did I run from him? What was wrong with me?

He stopped. Frowned. "Do you know who I am?"

"Jasper Whitlock," I said. Of course I knew him. How couldn't I? He alone was the force that kept me from drowning in my new body. When I was human, he was there for me when no one else was – When no one else could be. He was…

"You're mine," I whispered.

"Yes," Jasper said immediately.

Yes. He was. It was the answer to every question. I regarded the powerful creature before me with clearer eyes, understanding the depth of his devotion with a more open mind. He was mine, and had been since I saw him for the first time in that high school parking lot. It'd only taken four steps – what a minute thing to remember – to seal our fates into one.

There was another word for what he was to me, and what I was to him, but I was too afraid to say it. Still… I wanted to know.

"And…" I hedged. "I'm… yours?"

"Only if you want to be," he said.

Because it was a choice, I remembered learning somewhere before the change.

Did I want to be? Yes, yes of course. The answer was just as obvious, but I was still afraid of it. So much had happened – so much was still happening – and it all seemed to go so fast I could barely process any of it. He had to have seen everything – Or maybe he didn't –

"Where were you?" I demanded, the words flying from me without a thought.

Jasper lowered himself to crouch on the ground. To make himself seem smaller, maybe less threatening. He didn't come any closer. I glanced behind him, only to realize we were the only ones in the clearing. The other vampires were gone.

"With you," he said, drawing my attention back to him. "I had to stay far enough out that James wouldn't be able to track me, but I was always with you. I couldn't do anything until I had backup. I couldn't risk you anymore than I had. After what happened to Bella, the Cullens needed to stay behind, play the charade –"

Bella? "What happened to Bella?" My voice rose to an uncomfortably high pitch. My fingers curled into the ground and tore at the earth.

"She's fine," Jasper said. "She got treated for the injuries she got at the dance studio. Everyone else is safe."

The word safe was a salve to the burning panic I felt since I woke up. She was safe. Everyone was safe. I… I actually did it. I'd done enough. My shoulders sagged with relief. My gaze dropped down to my hands and feet, stained with blood. Disgusting.

I was disgusting. The leggings and tank top I wore, thin and cotton, were logged with blood. Even with the multiple dives into deep streams and lakes, I knew it soaked through the fabric and coated my skin. I was a canvas painted with death. And Jasper had seen it all.

"How could you even want me?" I demanded, another question that I didn't have time to filter.

He frowned at me, his brows furrowing. He actually looked confused. "Blaire…"

My name was so soft when it came from him, and I didn't deserve it at all. Not when I killed so many people. Not when I started James's cycle anew with so many people, with faces I could picture perfectly, but didn't feel anything for whatsoever.

"You didn't do anything wrong." Jasper took a step closer to me. It was hesitant, but I felt his approach in tingles running up my spine. Excitement and fear and anxiety – "A vampire's newborn phase is their thirstiest. James used that against you."

Anger made the air around him bristle.

"I wanted to kill him that day," he said suddenly. A deep growl vibrated just under his words, threatening to break. "Peter and Charlotte barely made it in time. They had to hold me down, to keep me from going into his trap. I knew it would've been a shitshow if I went for it, but…"

The anger boiled over into rage. Not mine, but his. I leaned forward on the balls of my feet anyway, ready to fight if he so much as asked –

"It's over now," I said.

It sliced Jasper's tension in half.

"It's done," I said.

The words sounded… real when I said them out loud.

I could fully focus on the blond curls that brushed along his forehead, the sharp angles of his face, the fullness of his lips, his eyes… so intent on me. I should have been unnerved by such a stare, but instead I felt at home in his focus. The only thing that bothered me was that his eyes were black with thirst. Was that how my eyes looked? Because it was how I felt. Even now, heat licked up my throat. It wouldn't be long until the need for blood took over.

"Aren't you thirsty?" I asked.

The question rewarded me with a slight smile. "It's an easy fix."

"An easy fix…" I echoed. "Bella's safe. Everyone's safe. It's over now."

I trembled with the force of it. It rattled me off balance, and I dropped to sitting in the snow, staring at Jasper. He finally, finally moved to close the space between us. I didn't move away when he reached out again. I let him wrap his arms around me and pull me into his chest while he leaned back into the trunk of a nearby tree. He felt… warm.

When I breathed in, the most incredible sharpness from a combination of burnt sugar and malted barley coated my palette. Malted barley… how the hell did I come up with a comparison like that? Why did it fit so perfectly?

It was all him. All peaceful. That scent and his touch drowned out the rest of the world. Being so close to him, his emotions washed over me like waves. It was joyous, contentedness, and that weighted emotion I still didn't have a name for.

"No matter what happens, I'm with you," Jasper said. I felt his low words vibrate against me. "My life is yours."

For the first time in a while, I felt peace. The relief and calm were so heavy, I closed my eyes and pretended I could sleep in his emotions.

V

Reunited and it feels so gooood~

Reunited 'cuz I'm so tired of dealing with James and Victoria and I just really want Jasper to be happy and maybe Blaire too!

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