Author's Note:
This chapter was originally supposed to be much longer, but when everything was said and done it was almost 12,000 words. So I found a spot that seemed like a good place to stop and everything leftover will be seen in chapter 5 and part of chapter 6.
I want to thank everyone who subscribed, favorited and especially reviewed! I really enjoy writing this and every time I get an alert that someone reviewed it just makes my whole damn day. So sincerely, thank you guys. I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think!
. ... .
With Edward gone, Bella was left standing in the ruins of all that was left of Jessica. It was hard for Bella to imagine what the room had looked like before the ransacking but from what she was able to see, Jessica's life had been very isolated. The walls were devoid of decoration – no photos of loved ones or friends, no other visual stimuli to speak of. The furniture was threadbare and worn. Bella quickly righted the thin twin mattress, eyes landing on the small bookshelf across the room. She walked to it and looked at the selection – it was stuffed with romance novels and brain teaser books of all sorts. Bella lifted one of the former and found that every page had been completed. On the floor was a small, boxy-looking television with an old Nintendo sixty-four that unsurprisingly did not look damaged at all.
The vanity on the far wall showcased another one of Jessica's pastimes; nail care. From the surface of the vanity, it was apparently one of her favorite things to do – it was littered with dozens of bottles of nail polish of all colors, countless files, decals, trimmers and extensions. Bella's mind conjured up an image of the girl from last night, sitting on the bed in the room day after day, painting her nails pretty colors with intricate designs in this dark, colorless room.
Shuddering, Bella pushed the thought away. She had her own problems to worry about, after all. The most prominent one being the metallic taste starting to form in her mouth. Reflexively, she reached into her pocket and quickly ate her final pill – there really was no point in delaying the inevitable. One pill wasn't going to save her from the hell she knew awaited right around the corner.
She remembered with a hint of embarrassment the time that she had gone to her general practitioner – the one that didn't bill her insurance, obviously – when she had miscounted the amount of pills that she had until her next refill, running out a whole two weeks early. She still remembered how humiliated she had been as he lectured her about how lucky she was that her withdrawal symptoms were not worse, how serious benzodiazepine withdrawal was – if people came off too fast they could even have seizures.
And you were lucky then, weren't you? the snide voice in her mind taunted. She had had foul tastes in her mouth, insomnia, muscle tremors and mood swings that could make the most seasoned dancers dizzy but no seizures. By the time that two weeks came and she could get her refill, she had felt good as new. That had been when she was only taking five and seven a day – now she was taking twice that, easily. What was she going to do?
She sat down on the bed, a full-blown panic attack trying to work its way up her throat. She needed to distract herself. With a rush of inspiration she began trying to locate clean clothes from the dead girl's supply. It was not an encouraging prospect. From what she remembered, Jessica had been a good four inches taller than Bella was and easily had two cup sizes up on her.
Resigned to wearing clothes that were like to fall off of her frame, Bella managed to find a pair of black leggings that she was sure would fit as well as a shirt that seemed small enough that would fit. It was a simple black shirt with the letters HBIC in bold, capital letters. Whatever that meant. With those found, Bella faced her next moral dilemma – to wear the dead girl's underwear, or no? Well, what else was she going to do? She was able to find a drawer with several banal options made of one hundred percent cotton with a sense of relief – the rest of the options were frilly thongs and G-strings that made Bella cringe.
Making her way into the adjoined bathroom, Bella quickly picked up the scattered remains of the medicine cabinet on the floor. She told herself that she did it so quickly to avoid tripping over them but in truth she looked to see if there were any bottles of benzos in the mix. No such luck.
Frustrated and filled with anxiety, she quickly shed her vomit-stained clothes and kicked them furiously into the corner. She pulled back the shower curtain and started the water before jumping inside. She let out a small gasp – the water was cold at first and it reminded her of Edward's fingertips, snaking on her back – but then the water heater kicked in and Bella closed her eyes as heat rained down over her body.
Jessica had a wide array of scented soaps and shampoos and Bella helped herself to them, allowing her natural routine to overtake her. It was not a good thing – it allowed her too much time to think. Bella doubted that anyone had missed her yet; she had no immediate family to speak of, worked from home with remote clients and extended deadlines. She had no landlord to come looking for missed rent. She felt a catch in the back of her throat and it burned when she tried to swallow around it; no one was going to miss her anytime soon. No one was coming for her.
Tears started to merge with the shower spray and Bella allowed herself a few moments to cry. It was a weakness, she knew, but it was a weakness she needed – before she knew it great, shuddering sobs began to wrack her chest, leaving her breathless. Images of the night before flickered behind her eyes; the dead body, Jessica's tear-stained face, Jasper drinking crimson liquid from a crystal glass. She heard Jessica's screams again and again, repeating through her mind like her Walkman had skipped over on bumpy roads.
Stop, Bella thought forcefully, shaking her head as if the motion could somehow physically shove the thoughts away. She rinsed the last bit of shampoo out of her eyes and shut off the water with a flourish and stepping out. She dripped water onto the cold stone floor before she quickly wiped off and donned the dead girl's clothes. Avoiding looking at her reflection, she made her way back into Jessica's room.
Your room now, the nasty voice whispered from the darkness of her mind.
As she stood in the destruction once again, her wet hair dripping onto the muted carpet at her feet, Bella wondered what her next move should be. With Edward gone, Bella figured that it was a good time as any to try the door again. Making her way cautiously through the house – who knew if he was really gone, after all? – she stopped at the bar where the pile of things she had tossed out of her bag earlier rested, carefully scooping it all back inside sans two spare bobby pins she found in the rubble.
She had actually done some research on picking locks, back when she had first moved into her mother's house. Bella had been fixated on the idea of a home intruder, plagued by visions of someone breaking in and murdering her as she slept. She kept one of the bobby pins in its original shape and bent the bottom of it against the bar, using her body weight to push it into a 'L' shape, planning to use it as a tension wrench. The other one she pried apart the metal, opening it to be a larger 'L'. From what she remembered online, all she would have to do was insert the tension wrench and use the other one to sort of scrub over the pins inside the locks.
The process was made more difficult by the fact that her hands could not stop shaking. When she was done she wrung out her hands, wincing at how much pressure she had had to apply to bend the metal. Instruments prepared, she made her way back to the front door. She tried it once more, just in case Edward for whatever reason had left it unlocked, knowing even before she did it that it was futile.
Bella gathered herself. You can do this, Bella repeated in her head like a mantra as she stretched her fingers and hands out, desperately trying to keep them steady. She inserted the pin that would serve as a tension and then took the other that she had opened wide, gently brushing against the pins inside as she jimmied the wench sideways.
To her sincere disbelief, after several long minutes of trying this, she actually felt the tension wrench start to move to the side. She repeated the motion and soon was able to push the tension all the way over. Bella both heard and felt the faint click that signified that it unlocked. Bella was so shocked that she almost dropped her tools. Adrenaline flooded her body and she quickly pulled them free, shaking out her hands as she tried to push down the swell of excitement in her chest. She couldn't afford to lose focus now. She let out an almost manic laugh before beginning on the second lock.
The adrenaline pumping through her body made it easier to keep her hands from shaking, as if everything had honed in and sharpened. When, after another minute or two passed, the second lock shrugged open Bella actually let out a whoop of excitement – she was only one lock away from freedom. The image of her tiny bottle of Xanax floated through her mind again. She could almost taste their ambrosia on her tongue, bitter and grainy.
She looked at the third lock and realized for the first time that it looked different than the other two. It was almost indiscernible from the others but the longer she stared at it she realized that it was a slightly different shape and seemed newer than the others. A feeling of foreboding pricked up her fingertips but she pushed it away as she stretched her hands out once again.
She slid the tension wrench inside the third lock before she brought the open bobby pin inside the lock once more, thrumming against the pins inside with what was by now almost a practiced ease. She did it again and again, trying to ignore the growing sense of dread building in her chest.
It wasn't working. She kept gently pushing the wrench sideways and drawing the other pin in and out, trying to choke back her panic. The wrench did not move at all, even as she shimmied and tried to force it sideways. Bella felt her heartbeat start to race, blood pounding in her ears. Fear flooded her veins and her hands began to shake again. No, no, no, it's the last one, Bella thought as her motions became more and more frantic. She had to get out of here, had to get back home and call the police and then never leave her house again and –
When she felt the bobby pin she was using to strum the pins inside the lock snap, it seemed like the vibration traveled all the way through her hand, up her arms until it reached her skull, reverberating her senses. She pulled her tools loose and saw that only a small piece off of the top of the pin had broken off inside. Desperately she jammed it back in, trying to fish the bit out. She could hear it tinking around somewhere inside the lock, even felt her pin brush against it multiple times but it was no use. She doubted even if she could stop the tremors in her hands that she would be able to finesse it out.
"FUCK," Bella exploded, slamming her palm against the door in a white rage. She did it over and over and over, screaming wordless fury. Then she took the tools she had been using and flung them across the room, screaming until her voice died out. Only then did she lean back against the door, sliding down it until her bottom hit the ground. She yanked on her hair sharply, resisting the urge to punch herself in the head by the barest bit of control.
Not having a panic attack was no longer an option. She stared around at the room between fistfuls of hair, watching as the room started trembling, the walls beginning to shift and tighten around her. The pale gold walls started to darken, decaying at the edges where they met the crown molding. A century's worth of blood and horror stained the creases of the edges of the room while the paintings on the walls withered and aged. "Oh, god," Bella groaned, pushing herself off of the ground with a desperate shove, fleeing down the hallway till she reached her purse on the bar. She pulled out her bottle of Ambien and grabbed two of them, swallowing one and tucking one under her tongue. She took the bottle with her as she ran back to Jessica's room like there was a monster chasing after her.
She threw herself onto Jessica's bed, pulling the dead woman's blankets over her and shutting out the rest of the world. The fact that Jessica's scent was everywhere was distracting and also horrifying but she couldn't stand to watch the horrors her mind cooked up manifest behind her eyelids. Renee had always told her that her creative mind was the thing she loved most about Bella, that Bella should nurture it and expand it.
But her mother had died and her mother had no idea what her anxiety did to her creative mind, manipulating it and twisting it until her life was her own personal house of horrors. When Bella took her Xanax, she was fine most of the time – her thoughts were clear, she did not obsess, she was even able to enjoy herself in her environment. When she had her pills, only the largest stressors could trigger the kind of semi-delusions she currently felt trying to claw their way out from her eyeballs.
Bella focused to regulate her breathing, closing her eyes and trying to think of things that would calm her down. She thought of sea shells. True tulip shells were always her favorite because they had such small openings; Bella liked that when she looked at them she could only see the opening of the shell on one side and not the other. She also liked the algorithmic curve that every shell had – the smooth, gradual spiral that was found in many other places in nature. One could see it in the growth of certain plants, the horns of a ram, the way hurricanes form and the curve of faraway spiral galaxies. As above, so below.
The images flashed across the closed lids of her eyes and Bella felt her breathing start to regulate. She breathed deeply and slowly, enjoying the way that the bit of tongue that the Ambien rested under was slightly numb. The blackness of sleep swept over her suddenly and with no warning, pulling her into its dark embrace as gently as a breeze pulls a seed head off of a dandelion.
. … .
Jasper opened the door to his penthouse, greeted by the sunlight pouring in the various skylights his home offered. He had the windows UV coated long ago, making the sunlight merely pleasant rather than annoying and slightly painful. To be honest, his skylights were the only appeal to the apartment – it was otherwise lacking in any decoration or embellishment other than functional furniture. Jasper was rarely at home other than to sleep and he felt no need to decorate.
He walked into his living room and glared at the sight he saw. His large, sectional couch was occupied by his recent roomie, who was snoozing comfortably. Annoyed, Jasper kicked his leg hanging over the edge to wake him. Edward opened his eyes in irritation, his leg never moving. "What?" the other man growled, his voice rough from sleep.
"Jenks is done. All he had to do was resign her from her job and inform her doctors that she was moving," he told Edward as he leaned against the door frame. "He said that he's never had an easier cleanup his entire tenure," Jasper smiled at how beautifully Bella Swan had been erased. Her accounts had had more than enough money to pay the property tax on her home for many years – all that had to be done was cancel the water and electricity and set up automatic payments to the county. Jenks would file her taxes for the next couple years, just for appearances, but after that Bella Swan would officially fall off the face of the earth.
Talk about tying loose ends, Jasper thought happily to himself before feeling a small twitch of guilt. He remembered the girl downstairs – a small waif of a thing with big blue eyes that seemed both ancient and innocent. She reminded him of those paintings of the kids with the huge eyes, and he felt a small spasm of pity that she had no one to care about what happened to her.
"That's it? That's all he had to do?" Edward asked, surprise apparent on his face.
"Yep. The girl is practically a ghost," Jasper told him nonchalantly, shrugging as he sat on the only chair he had in the room. Edward's sprawling form took up his whole couch and Jasper looked grumpily at his comfortable form. That was his couch. "Don't you have an apartment?" he pouted.
"This is my apartment," Edward growled as he closed his eyes once more. "This is my apartment. The one downstairs is my apartment, and all the ones in between are mine. I own the building, fucker," Edward pulled Jasper's only couch throw pillow over his eyes. "Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep."
"Here's a novel idea," Jasper's voice sounded excited, as if the proverbial light bulb had lit up above his head. "Why don't you go sleep at your place? I hear you even have a bed down there."
"If you keep talking, I swear to god, I will rip your fucking fangs out," Edward threatened, his voice muffled from under the pillow.
Jasper grinned, holding back laughter even as his voice took on an offended edge, "Not funny, Edward. You know how long those take to regenerate," he replied haughtily. "But seriously, what gives? You haven't been up here this much since the eighties," Jasper said, his mind going back to that time with nostalgia. It really had been a great decade, he reflected – terrible music, women in spandex, so much blow up everyone's noses that they couldn't tell up from down. Ahh, simpler times.
"Fuck off, Jasper," the other man said moodily.
"You fuck off, man. Go home," he was really starting to get mad. He hadn't fed in about two days and hadn't slept for just about that long as well, and Edward's presence was really starting to grate at him. He wanted to be alone, have some space to think without wondering if Edward was choosing to listen to his thoughts like a fucking prick.
"You're the fucking prick," Edward exploded, the other man's patience snapping as he whipped the pillow he had been using at Jasper's face. Lazily, Jasper moved his head to the side, allowing it to land harmlessly upon the hardwood floors. "It's your fault, you know. I told you to take care of her while I was dealing with Jessica. But no," he sneered, "You had to go all soft and leave me to deal with the shit."
Jasper rolled his eyes, exaggerating the movement, "I've never known you to be so squeamish, Edward. I had just ate right before I met her, anyway. And the girl you found smells really good, even with all the drugs in her system," he remembered how she smelled, as if her blood would be light and fruity but pack a punch, like a fine wine aged over many years. "I figured since I messed the Jessica situation up for you, she could be a convenient stand in," Jasper smiled at how nicely the pieces had all fallen together.
'Oh, blow me, Jasper," Edward scoffed, "Don't lie – you just feel guilty because you practically signed the girl's death warrant. You get way too attached, man. Always have," Edward scorned disdainfully, "They die like weeds, Jasper. Get over it."
Anger stirred in Jasper's gut but he pushed it down with a hateful smile at the asshole laying on his couch, "If that's the case, why don't you just go deal with the interloper downstairs and make both our lives easier?" Jasper asked maliciously, beyond the point of caring about the brown haired, blue eyed wisp downstairs. "Honestly, I've seen your face damn near every day for the last century and never once have I wanted to rip it off so badly," Jasper remained smiling but had to reign in all self-control to prevent grinding the armrest of his chair into dust.
Edward exhaled loudly, giving up all premise of sleep and running a hand through his hair. "Fucking aye, man, it's just weird, okay?" he said exasperatedly, sounding disgusted with himself. "First off – why can't I read the girl's mind? I mean I noticed that she was a quiet one when we were in the shop. Three of the others were practically screaming at me when I walked in," he cringed at the memory, rubbing his forehead absentmindedly. "I just didn't know quiet meant silent. It's fucking weird, man. And I'm also not used to someone who… who doesn't…" he trailed off with a curse.
The corners of Jasper's mouth turned up, "What? Got used to the simpering, longing glances of the freaks James supplies you?" Jasper sneered. Edward casted him a black look before he sighed and ran his hand through his hair again.
"Maybe," Edward allowed. "Christ, Jasper, you should have seen the hate in that girl's eyes. I haven't seen that in quite a long time," he admitted. Unwillingly, his mind flashed to the last woman who had looked at him so. He winced, pushing the thought away.
"You're just freaked because you can't read her thoughts and I can't feel her. It's weird, definitely an interesting anomaly, sure," Jasper allowed, rolling his eyes. He needed Edward out of his apartment yesterday. "But really, who fucking cares? Just put her out of her damn misery if she bothers you so much."
"Fuck off, Jasper," Edward growled. Apparently Jasper had finally sufficiently annoyed him enough to make him leave because he quickly stood from the couch and a half-second later the front door slammed hard enough to shake the entire floor.
Jasper stood up happily, picking up the discarded throw pillow from the ground. The next second he was flopping onto the sofa with it jammed under his head. He smiled, sighing contently as his hazel eyes fluttered shut.
. ... .
A/N:
The paintings that Jasper describes are the the ones painted by Margaret Keane. Thanks for reading!
