Tilda's POV:
It's been four days since I set up a self imposed quarantine in my new room.
It's been four days since my flashback to the years I was forced to spend at that place.
It's been four days since my arms were stitched up.
It's been four days since I was told that Edward can read minds.
It's been four days since Mister Carlisle almost took my jumper off to look at how far the cut on my neck went - thank the stars I woke up in time.
I chose my new room for a few reasons - it is small with thick windows and no furniture other than a mattress and an over stuffed chair. I picked the room so if I flipped out again, in another nightmare or flashback thingy, I won't destroy anything. The chair was brought in so I could be watched. In case I have a panic attack or do something weird, I suppose.
Right now I have Jasper with me and, don't get me wrong I love uncle Jazz in my own way, but he is the only one out of all the others who just sits and stares at me as if I'm going to up and run at any moment! It's an improvement, I guess, he used to just stand next to the door like some sort sentry or guard until Alice told him to sit down. I know it's perfectly comfortable for him to so, but it's very weird, knowing that he's just there.
Everyone else does some sort of task, or at least pretends to. Alice flicks through fashion catalogues and we talk about our favourites. With Rosalie she did my hair and I helped her choose a new car - the Cullens are richer than I could ever have imagined, because Rosalie just brought a car outright once we had picked one. A very lovely red Cadillac I must say!
With Emmet I will normally talk sport particularly American football - it sounds great but in all the videos I watch I never see girls my age (well around ten like I look anyway). With Bella I asked about Renesmee and, although I am forbidden from meeting her
With Edward I don't feel safe thinking and I usually just annoy him. For example I will think of every item of clothing that Alice has ever given me - sometimes this infuriates him so much that he has to go for a hunt and leaves me for a few hours.
Now I'm just sitting on my mattress and counting the swirls on this wall. Alice painted it exactly like my proper room because she wanted me to not feel sad and lonely. There is 22 blue-gray swirls and 24 gold ones.
No I'm bored, but more importantly I'm starving. I haven't eaten or drunk why thing in over two weeks. Two whole weeks! I mean that would kill a normal human but I can last about three weeks before I stop functioning properly, I've found out through experience.
So I came up with a clever plan. I thought about how thirsty and how much I needed to drink something, after about five or six minutes, it started working. I had to my thoughts to channel my emotions into feelings on thirst and hunger. Jasper looked up at me so I narrowed my eyes, daring him to refuse.
"Oh I get it!" He said standing up . "I'll go and get Edward or Emmet."
I looked at him and raised an eye brow as best I could, "Why?" I asked sarcastically.
"You know why." Was his swift response .
"Please Jazz!" I looked up at him and begged, " just the two of us, I promise not even to go invisible at all. "
He paused a moment, deliberating it. "Fine." He said and so I mimed a cheer. "I'll just tell Carlisle that we're off."
He ran down stairs and a few seconds later I heard Carlisle exclaim "How silly of me not to think out her! She must be starving!" He was obviously saying it very loudly so I could hear, but I still appreciated the gesture and thought of the idea.
I walked down the stairs and slipped out the back door that faces the woods, waiting silently for Jasper.
I heard a light thump next to me, and looked up to see Jasper next to me with a faint grin on his face. "I surprised you there, didn't I?" He said as we headed off towards the forest.
"Not even close!" I shot back, with a grin as we entered the cool shade under the trees.
We started running and soon I could smell the delicious, hot, soothing scent of human blood.
"Tills, Matilda!" Jasper sounded like he was underwater as I ran as fast as I could towards the ever-closer smell of human bleeding.
I took a deep breath and realised the human was was bleeding was less than a kilometre away. "Must...have...it!" I managed to choke out through my parched throat. I continued to run, faster than ever.
"Animals!" Jasper was still underwater. " We don't kill humans now, do we Matilda? "
" Don't care, so thirsty! " I spat out. Suddenly I wasn't running any more. I was falling, fast. I fell on to the hard,muddy, leafy ground, The breath was knocked out of me as I struggled to regain my senses.
I tried to push my self up, but was forced down again into the floor. I turned my head as much as I could, expecting to see a fallen tree or something of that sort on me. So I was surprised when I saw Jasper crouching over me with his hands firmly on my back. Although I am half vampire, I am powerless in strength against a full vampire. Especially Jasper, with his expertise with handling newborns and emotions.
"I guess you were quite thirsty." Jasper said with a ghost of a grin. "Normally I'm the one whose having to be held back from humans."
"Yeah, well would you mind getting of me? " I asked Jasper, whilst scowling at him "your kinda killing these clothes Alice gave me."
He stepped away cautiously and I stood up. The first thing I noticed was that the delicious smell was gone.
" Where's the -" I started.
"You think I'm that stupid?" Jasper looked at me with an eyebrow raised, "I put you to sleep, by calming you down and moved you. We're over fifty kilometres away from any humans now."
" It did smell really good though. " I mumbled feeling a bit ashamed of myself for lacking self control.
"Its fine, Cadet, I've made much worse mistakes before." Jasper said as he placed a hand on my shoulder, in his, and mine too since I inherited it from him, reserved but affectionate way.
I smiled gratefully at him and then concentrated on my thirst for blood.
"Take a deep breath," Jasper had obviously sensed my hunger and was coaching me through the hunting process, like he did all those years ago. "What can you sense around you? Leaves, trees, mud and -"
But I was running already, I could smell and hear the mountain lion as I approached it, it's muddy fur, heavy breathing and, of course, it's thick blood. I jumped, and was soon draining it completely. I sucked it out until I was just trying to suck air.
I heard a soft laugh from above me, and I scowled at Jasper who was sitting on a branch, watching me eat.
"Don't worry," Jasper chuckled, "There's more where that came from. "
Another mountain lion and three deer later, I was full. Jazz and I were sitting on the tallest tree in the forest, looking out over southern Canada.
"So do you trust the Cullens, like completely? " I asked after Jasper after he had filled me in on everything that had happened to him these last ten years or so.
"Tills, I am a Cullen, Alice is a Cullen. I would trust them with my life. " I leaned back in the crook of the tree I was in, a bit taken aback by how Jazz felt. I knew he's loved the Cullens, but I've never meet them before.
"On that serious note, "Jasper cleared his throat carefully. "You need to tell the us all about what's been going on recently, where you've been and, seriously Matilda, you have to tell us what the people you were with did to you. " Ahhhh so this is why Jasper agreed not to bring Emmet or Edward.
"I can't!" I shook my head slowly.
" Why not? " Jasper whisper-shouted, getting a bit exasperated, I could tell.
"I just can't, Jazz!" I shouted back. "Its to painful."
We sat in silence for a minute before Jasper next spoke. "Okay, you don't have to talk, but do you want me to show you Helena City?" I could tell he didn't want me to hate him. "I can even get you an ice cream?"
Typical Jasper, he knows the way to my heart is ice cream. "Fine. I would love to, but" here I gestured to my muddy and blood splattered clothes. "I don't exactly look even remotely normal."
Almost sheepishly, Jasper reached a hand into his pocket and drew out a long sleeved denim dress-shirt thing that could go over the leggings I was wearing. "Alice said I would be needing this."
I took them from him and gestured for him to jump to the ground. When he didn't leave I had to make it very obvious. "I'm going to get changed, Jazz, you going to leave me in peace or not? "
"Normally when you, Alice or I are getting changed, we just turn around, remember? " Jasper challenged. I did.
"Yeah...but...but...I'm older now" I said slowly, trying to come up with a plausible excuse.
Jasper gave a disbelieving snort. "You're barely a year older, in human terms. "
I shook my head and tried not to let my emotions show the embarrassment and guilt I was feeling.
"Come on Matilda," Jasper said and moved next to me. "This isn't the Cadet I know, the Cadet I knew always talked to us if she knew it would help her or others. The Cadet I knew jumped at the chance of ice cream, or a game. The Cadet I knew would never put herself in solitary confinement, she jumped at the chance of meeting new people. Where's that Cadet gone?"
I was crying softly now, because what Jasper said, and I knew it was true. "What if that me has gone, disappeared?" I asked between sniffs.
"Tilda, look at me." Jasper faced my turned head.
"No! " I felt all was and ashamed of myself. "I'm all tainted and stupid." I cursed myself through tears.
"Tilda. " I felt Jasper take my chin and turn it so I was facing him. "Your not stupid, okay, but you've been through some hard times by the sound of it. You're still inside you, you just need the time to find it."
"You think so?" I whispered so low that a human would never have heard it.
"I know so " my uncle said with a smile tugging on his lips. "
" So if I talk to you and the rest of them, I don't ever have to talk about it again, unless I want to? " I asked.
"Yep." I hugged Jasper then, something I don't often do, since we are both reserved people and I always think he saves his hugs and stuff for Alice. He stood stiffly at first then allowed himself to wrap his long arms around my thin shoulders.
I took the dress-shirt from Jasper, turned around away from him and slipped my muddy hoodie off. I expected to hear something from Jasper when I did so, and I was not disappointed.
"W...W...What happened? " Jasper stuttered out. For someone normally incredibly calm, he seemed at a loss.
"It's not much." I said, lying through my teeth. I knew what it looked like, a spider web of red cuts and rips on my back, speckled with purple a nd blue bruises.
"How?" Jasper said as if it was an interrogation as I slipped in the shirt he packed for me.
"Like you said, I've been through some hard times in the last ten years. " I stated flatly.
"We have to get Carlisle to look at it. " Jasper said and ran a hand through he hair.
"No!" I practically shouted. He looked confused and frustrated at me.
" you said you would cooperate! "
I smiled, "you owe me an ice cream first."
Edward's POV:
I could hear their footsteps and Tilda's slow beating heart before I heard Jasper's thoughts, he was sitting at me internally.
EDWARD! Gather everyone in the living room, Tilda is going to talk.
Boy I don't know what he's said to her, but it worked.
Time to get the troops ready.