Happy 2023 part 2!

Fridays are becoming my busiest days of the week between updating this fic here, and uploading the edited (or reVAMPing it, if you will) version of RAVAGE on AO3 and Wattpad, and uploading the latest chapter of my original collaborative novel Once Upon a Lie on Wattpad. It's a YA fantasy romance that updates every week for FREE on Wattpad if you want something to read on the side while waiting for these updates.

You'll also note that my revamping process includes new covers lol. I just got really excited about rebranding.

Going forward, my goal is to upload one new SAVAGE chapter every month, and I'll also let you guys know once any bonus content for RAVAGE gets uploaded on AO3 and Wattpad. Eventually I'm going to edit the version of RAVAGE here, but that's a late 2023 task.

Regarding a social media presence, I've had a couple people comment and reach out to me via DMs saying that Twitter was the best place to meet, so hmu on the profile TwitchWalkerTX for updates, answers to questions, and sick Twilight memes. I already started revamping that as well to make it more up-to-date!

Again, if you see quotes pulled directly from Eclipse, yes you did. And again, please let me know if any content in this chapter feels mishandled.

JULY

Part II

"AS I WAS SAYING," Jasper went on, his tone already dipping out from joyful and back down into worry. "To understand, you have to look at the world from a different perspective. You have to imagine the way it looks to the powerful, the greedy… the perpetually thirsty."

A vampire's perspective. No – not just any vampire's perspective – because Alice was kind and generous, and so were the Cullens and most of the Denalis. They were content to gather and roost together with their animal blood and each other. The way Jasper and I were, too, I realized.

"For us, there are places in this world that are more desirable to us than others," he explained. "Places where we can be less restrained, and still avoid detection. The reason why I asked you to picture a map of the western hemisphere is so that you can imagine every human life gathered there as one small red dot. The thicker the red, the more easily those who exist this way can feed without attracting notice.

"The covens in the South don't care much for what the humans notice or not, but the Vultori keep them in check. The Vultori are the only ones the southern covens fear. If not for them, all of us would be quickly exposed. The North, by comparison, is very civilized. Mostly we are nomads here who enjoy the day as well as the night, who allow humans to interact with us unsuspectingly – anonymity is important to us all. We'll get you there one day soon, too."

He said it as if rejoining the world I'd been forcibly removed from – the human world – was one I was anxious to get back to. As if I had things to do when I was able to walk among humans without wanting to kill them. My old life was over. I was slowly coming to terms with never seeing it again. It was easier to push past it than grieve for it.

"It's a different world in the South," Jasper said, pulling my attention back to him. Maybe he noticed he was losing me. "The immortals there only come out at night. They spend the day plotting their next move, or anticipating their enemy's. It's been war down there, constant war for centuries, with never a moment of truce."

I glanced at the scars covering him from head to toe then.

"The covens there barely note the existence of humans, except as soldiers would notice a herd of cows by the wayside – food for the taking. They only hide from the notice of the herd because of the Vultori. I'll admit I was the same way, even long after I left, until you."

I was starting to feel the same, except I toyed with the idea of humans as something other. Not cows, but hazards. I didn't want to hurt them, didn't want them to ever feel the way I had in the thick of James's horrible games, but it would be inevitable. It had been every time James pointed me in some poor hiker or camper's miserable direction. I was a loaded gun, a weapon Alice said would have caught the Vultori's attention if James had forced me down his path any longer, a ticking time bomb Charlotte thought would go off at any time. I was terrified of either possibility turning into a reality, and it was all the more reason to isolate myself and push the humanity out of arm's reach.

"They fight for control of the thickest areas of red," Jasper explained, unaware of the turn my thoughts had taken. He seemed to be lost to his story, lost to his own memories. "It occurred to someone once that if he were the only vampire in… let's say Mexico City, he could feed every night, twice, three times, and no one would ever notice. He plotted ways to get rid of the competition. Others had the same idea. Some came up with more effective tactics than others, but the most effective tactic was invented by a fairly young vampire named Benito. The first anyone ever heard of him, he came down from somewhere north of Dallas and massacred the two small covens that shared the area near Houston. Two nights later, he took on the much stronger clan of allies that claimed Monterrey in northern Mexico. Again, he won."

How did Jasper know this? Had he been in this Benito's war path? Was that where the scars had come from?

"Benito created an army of newborn vampires," Jasper said. "He was the first one to think of it, and in the beginning, he was unstoppable. You know that young vampires are volatile, wild, and almost impossible to control."

I did remember. The chaos, the terror, the rage and hopeless. I still had my moments, even if they were stretched further apart than they used to be.

"But that goes for any newborn, like I told you. You'll learn to restrain and adapt," he explained. "But imagine ten, fifteen together. It's a nightmare. They'll turn on each other as easily as on the enemy you point them at. Benito had to keep making more as they fought amongst themselves, and as the covens he decimated took more than half his force down before they lost. Newborns are dangerous, but they're still possible to defeat if you know what you're doing."

I couldn't help but reach up to hold onto my shoulder, rubbing at the thick scar there through the fabric of Jasper's hoodie. Even all my brute strength hadn't been enough to defeat James that one time. It had been a hard lesson to learn.

"Newborns are incredibly powerful physically, for the first year or so, and if they're allowed to bring strength to bear, they can crush an older vampire with ease. But they're also slaves to their instincts, and thus predictable. Usually they have no skill in fighting, only muscle and ferocity. And in this case, overwhelming numbers." Jasper rested his hand on my shoulder, too, over my own hand. He leaned down and kissed my head. "I'm sorry. I'm not saying this to bring up your past – I only want you to understand. Do you want me to stop?"

I shook my head. If he could bear the heaviness of my past, I would bear his too.

"All hell broke loose – and I mean that more literally than you can possibly imagine," Jasper continued after sensing my resolve. "We immortals have our histories, too, and this particular war will never be forgotten. When the body count reached epidemic proportions – in fact, human histories blame a disease for the population slump – the Vultori finally stepped in. The entire guard came together and sought out every newborn in the bottom half of North America. Benito was entrenched in Puebla, building his army as quickly as he could in order to take on the prize – Mexico City. The Vultori started with him, and then moved on to the rest."

I shuddered. If the Vultori had waited that long to do something about Benito, what had Alice seen that would make them take an interest in me?

"Anyone who was found with the newborns was executed immediately, and, since everyone was trying to protect themselves from Benito, Mexico was emptied of vampires for a time. The Vultori were cleaning house for almost a year," Jasper said. "This was another chapter of our history that will always be remembered, though there were very few witnesses left to speak of what it was like. I spoke to someone who had, from a distance, watched what happened with they visited Culiacán."

I tensed as his fear – which had been dampening the air around us – swelled. "Jasper…" I murmured. He shook his head, refusing to look at me.

"It was enough that the fever for conquest did not spread from the South," he went on. Even though his voice was smooth, low, there was an urgency to it. A need for him to get the words out. "The rest of the world stayed sane. We owe the Vultori our present way of life. But when they went back to Italy, the survivors were quick to stake their claims in the South. It didn't take long before the covens began to dispute again. There was a lot of bad blood. Vendettas abounded. The idea of newborns was already there, and some were not able to resist. However, the Vultori had not forgotten, and the southern covens were more careful this time. The newborns were selected from the human pool with more care and given more training. They were used circumspectly, and the humans remained, for the most part, oblivious. Their creators gave the Vultori no reason to return.

"The wars resumed, but on a smaller scale. Every now and then, someone would go too far, speculation would begin in the human newspapers, and the Vultori would return and clean out the city. But they let the others, the careful ones, continue…"

My chest felt tight, like something was pressing down on it, and I knew. I knew, I knew, I knew –

"That was where I was born," Jasper told me. His words, the pain that laced them, hurt me. The emotion felt like an ache from holding my muscles taut for too long. It was exhausting. He'd been born in war, in bloodshed, just like me but on a much bigger scale.

"When I was human, I lived in Houston, Texas," he went on. "I was almost seventeen years old when I joined the Confederate Army in 1861. I lied to the recruiters and told them I was twenty. I was tall enough to get away with it. I stayed in it for two years."

I lifted a hand. "Wait. The Confederate Army?"

He shoved a hand through his hair. "I told you there were parts of me that I needed you to know. I didn't… I didn't join because I felt particularly drawn to its cause –"

"But you did it anyway," I snapped, anger trying to replace the earth that had been yanked out from under me. I could barely believe the words, believe him – "What the fuck, Jasper –"

"It was a different time," he said, and I made an ugly sound – something between a scoff and a squawk maybe – in return. "My family was poor, struggling, and the army was new and scrambling to organize itself, so that provided opportunities. I did it to help my situation. It doesn't mean I don't regret it. Because I do. It's one of those scars that won't heal, and I don't want it to. What I did was wrong, and I've spent all my time since trying to make more right instead."

I didn't know how long we stayed quiet, me seething, him letting me seethe.

"The thing about time…" he began, quietly, "is that it allows the opportunity to correct itself as it goes on. You don't know it yet, but in ten or twenty years, there will be some things happening now that won't be excused in the future. Society keeps changing, keeps expanding, and a small upside to this life is being able to help those changes along – even if you can only do it in small ways. I don't excuse my past, and I'm learning from it still."

I shook my head. "It's not my place to forgive you or say it's all right."

"It's not something that should be forgiven," he replied.

We fell into another silence. The sun was high in the sky. Jasper had stopped projecting, instead pulling all of his emotions back to hide them behind an obstinate wall. Letting me come to my own conclusions without any sway, as he always did. Finally, I sighed. "I need time to adjust to… that," I admitted. "I still need to know how it happened for you."

"I was placed in charge of evacuating the women and children from the city when the Union's mortar boats reached the harbor," Jasper explained, only glancing at me with some trepidation. "It took a day to prepare them, and then I left with the first column of civilians to convey them to Houston. I… remember that night very clearly.

"We reached the city after dark. I stayed long enough to make sure the entire party was safely situated. As soon as that was done, I got myself a fresh horse and headed back to Galveston. There wasn't time to rest. Just a mile outside the city, I found three women on foot. I assumed they were stragglers and dismounted at once to offer them my aid. But, when I could see their faces in the dim light of the moon, I was stunned into silence. They were, without question, the three most beautiful women I had ever seen."

I glared at him. He quickly lifted his hands up, palms facing me, and shook his head. "Before you, darlin', before you."

"They were young, all of them, still young enough to be called girls," he went on. "I knew they were not lost members of our party. I would've remembered seeing them. They talked amongst themselves, about me but not to me. I didn't understand the meaning of their words at the time, but I realize now they were deciding amongst themselves who would be the one to turn me. My instincts told me that there was danger, but my judgement overruled them. I had been taught not to fear women, but to protect them."

I could almost imagine it, the same Jasper in front of me, but covered in grime and dressed in a rumpled uniform, doing his best to find his footing in his time before being forced into a completely different world – before he could fully understand the impact he had been leaving behind as a soldier in the bloodiest American war fighting for the wrong side. He was responsible for murders, too, when he was human. Just like me.

"Her name was Maria," he finally said. "I still remember the first words she spoke to me – the last words I heard as a human. She said, 'I truly hope you survive Jasper. I have a good feeling about you.'

"A few days later, I was introduced to my new life. Maria wanted revenge and her territories back after losing a battle. Her and the other two – Nettie and Lucy – were putting together an army and going about it more carefully than was usual. It was Maria's idea. She wanted a superior army, so she sought out specific humans who had potential. Then she gave us much more attention, more training than anyone else had bothered with. She taught us to fight, and she taught us to be invisible to humans. She was in a hurry, though. Maria knew that the massive strength of the newborn began to wane around the year mark, and she wanted to act while we were strong.

"There were six of us when I joined her. She added four more within a fortnight. We were all male – Maria wanted soldiers – and that made it slightly more difficult to keep from fighting amongst ourselves. I fought my first battles against my new comrades in arms. I was quicker than the others, better at combat. Maria was pleased with me, though put out that she had to keep replacing the ones I destroyed.

"Maria was a good judge of character. She decided to put me in charge of the others – as if I were being promoted. It suited my nature exactly. The casualties went down dramatically, and our numbers swelled to hover around twenty. This was considerable for the cautious times we lived in. My ability, as yet undefined, to control the emotional atmosphere around me was vitally effective. We soon began to work together in a way that newborn vampires had never cooperated before. Even Maria, Nettie, and Lucy were able to work together more easily."

He finally looked at me then. "Maria… grew quite fond of me. She began to depend on me. And, in some ways, I worshipped the ground she walked on. I had no idea that any other life was possible. Maria told us this was the way things were, and we believed."

I would've been the same way, if James and Victoria had captured me alone. If I didn't have Jasper. "Were you able to track down James because you knew he was trying to do the same with me?" I asked.

Jasper nodded. "He was like her. In many ways."

"How did you get away?" I asked. "When it was me and James, I had you, but you… you were alone."

He shrugged, leaning back against a tree, staring at his sneaker-clad feet. "I didn't know there was anything else out there. I didn't for years."

For years he'd been alone, forced to fight every single day, and die a million deaths. Jasper said those wars were as close to hell as one could get, and he'd been forced in the thick of it with no idea that there could be more. How had he gotten through the sleepless nights? Did he hold onto grainy, human moments of peace when it was darkest? What were they?

"We'd held onto Monterrey, even after Nettie and Lucy turned on Maria," Jasper said. "The idea of conquest was dying out; it was mostly vengeance and feuding now. So many had lost their partners, and that is something our kind does not forgive."

He glanced at me, but I'd already steeled myself. I knew Victoria would come back eventually to avenge her dead psychotic lover, but I was ready for her. I was only biding my time to give her a slow, painful death. The only death she deserved.

"Maria and I always kept a dozen or so newborns ready," he went on. "They meant little to us – they were pawns, they were disposable. When they outgrew their usefulness, we did dispose of them. My life continued in the same violent pattern and the years passed. I was sick of it all for a very long time before anything changed. Decades later, I developed a friendship with a newborn who remained useful and survived his first three years, against the odds. It was Peter."

My eyes widened. I almost forgot about how Jasper's oldest friends fit into this horrible story.

"He was assigned to deal with the newborns – babysit them, you could say. It was a full-time job. And then it was time to purge again. The newborns were outgrowing their strength; they were due to be replaced. Peter was supposed to help me dispose of them. We took them aside individually… It was always a very long night. He tried to convince me that a few had potential, but Maria instructed that we get rid of them all. I told him no.

"We were about halfway through, and I could feel it taking a great toll on Peter. I was trying to decide on whether or not I should send him away and finish up myself as I called out the next victim. To my surprise, he was suddenly angry, furious. I braced for whatever mood might foreshadow – he was a good fighter, but he was never a match for me. The newborn I'd summoned was a female, just past her year mark –"

"Charlotte," I said.

He nodded. "Peter's feelings changed when she came into view. They gave him away. That was when I witnessed the mating bond firsthand. He yelled for her to run, and he bolted after her. I could've pursued them, but I didn't. I felt… averse to destroying him. Maria was irritated with me for that…"

He reached up to rub against the thick band along his neck, the one that always worried me, and white-hot rage lashed through me. I tensed, ready to spring up, but Jasper shook his head. "It's all right –"

"The hell it's not." I think it surprised both of us when my voice cracked.

"It's over now," Jasper said, his words softer. "If anything, it was deserved for the hell I wrought. And it didn't last for much longer. Five years after that, in 1938 I think, Peter snuck back for me. He picked a good day to arrive. Maria was mystified by my ever-deteriorating frame of mind. She'd never felt a moment's depression and wondered why I was different. I noticed her emotions change when she was around me. Sometimes there was fear… and malice. They were the same feelings that had given me advance warning when Nettie and Lucy struck. I was preparing myself to destroy my only ally – the core of my existence – when Peter returned.

"He told me about his new life with Charlotte, told me about options I'd never dreamed I had. In five years, they'd never had a fight, though they'd met with many others in the north. Others who could co-exist without the constant mayhem. In one conversation, he had me convinced. I was ready to go, somewhat relieved I wouldn't have to kill Maria. I'd been her companion for as many years as Carlisle and Edward have been together, yet the bond between us was nowhere near as strong. When you live for the fight, for the blood, the relationships you form are tenuous and easily broken. I walked away without a backward glance."

She was still alive, I realized. Still out there, worse than James, creating and curating hell on earth for so many others like us. The one responsible for Jasper's immortality and torment. I couldn't help but wonder if he thought Maria would come back for him, the way I knew Victoria would come back for me.

I would kill Maria before she ever got close to him again.

"I traveled with Peter and Charlotte for a few years, but I wandered away from them. They only wanted peace from the fight. I was so wearied by killing – killing anyone, even humans. I could feel everything my prey was feeling. I lived their emotions as I killed them. I told you about this before, on the day James and Victoria chased you down your street, but I don't know if you remember."

I didn't, but I would make a point to try and recall it later.

"After that, you also asked me if I wanted to kill you," he said. "I said yes. I'd lived your emotions that day, Blaire, and you were terrified. It made me terrified for so many more reasons. You were so fragile. The idea of losing you so easily… I wanted to kill you so I could turn you. So I could ensure you were safe. But that would only make me as much of a monster as the ones that were hunting you. The same monster I've been trying to outgrow from for the past hundred and fifty years, before I even knew you existed and would eventually cross my path."

He crossed the space between us, kneeling in front of me. This position felt familiar, somehow, as I stared down at him. "You know everything now," he said. "It's up to you to do with it what you want."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I asked.

"Why do you think?" he countered, gently. "You had your own burdens to carry, and my past isn't going anywhere. But I wasn't intending to hide it from you. I wanted to wait until you were more settled into this life – your own skin – before burdening you more. What happened earlier… It made me realize I needed to tell you sooner rather than later."

I nodded, even if the answer didn't exactly mollify me. It was unsettling, to know that the male I'd fallen hopelessly in love with made choices and lived a human life that was so fundamentally wrong. That I loved him still, even though I did regard him differently now.

Jasper didn't look away, didn't shy from the obvious way I scrutinized him. He was steady, patient, but reserved. Still keeping his emotions from me. He didn't need me to know how he felt in this moment. He only wanted me to hear his words and make a decision with my emotions alone. His kneeling before me was an offering. He had given me everything, I realized, which was far more than he'd ever offered to anyone else.

This was still Jasper, complicated history and all. His past wasn't forgiven, but he said himself it never should be, but also that what happened after him was deserved.

All… seventy-five years of it, in exchange for two.

And despite his life and its horrors, despite everything, his soul still reached for mine. More than that, it still reached for its own version of peace and atonement.

Inexplicably, it gave me hope. Even in these frozen, unageing bodies, there was still space to grow and change.

I leaned forward, slowly, and kissed his cheek. Jasper didn't move, his eyes remaining on mine even after I pulled away. "Thank you for telling me," I finally said.

When I stood up, I grabbed Jasper's hand and pulled him back to the cabin.

V

I struggled with writing this chapter.

I honestly don't know what I would do if I were in Blaire's position. Or Jasper's. It's why I left things here open-ended. I think it will always be that way as both of these characters navigate an ever-changing world, the spaces they take up within it, and as every new scenario comes.

I know we all have moments in our lives that we regret, or look back on with disdain (let's not talk about how many times I cringe at myself every day about accidentally cutting someone off in a grocery store line two years ago), but to be in a movement fueled by hate and ignorance for even a moment, no matter the reasons behind joining (which I made up because SM didn't explain why Jasper joined the army in the first place, and I couldn't find an answer anywhere else when I researched it)... I still don't know. It bothers me that no insight was really given, or that the narrator of Eclipse (a young, modern person who would be studying American history in her final years of high school) didn't have more of a reaction to Jasper being a Confederate soldier in the Civil War.

What also bothers me is that I haven't finished Midnight Sun yet, but I remember reading a line from Edward about how the vampires in SM's world find change difficult, and remain frozen in their personalities, and because all the other Cullens were born in periods of time where racism was rampant... I wonder if they still hold onto those beliefs.

If they do, which I sincerely doubt, then I'm letting y'all know right now that I refuse to stick to that canon.

What bothers me MORE is that when I read this book for the first time, I also glazed over Jasper's life the same way Bella kind of ended up doing. I still don't know if I even got Blaire's reaction right in this chapter, or Jasper's emotions about everything, because how do you put yourself in the frame of mind of someone who has seen almost two centuries worth of stuff? I also couldn't help but also think about the Twilight saga itself, written and based between the years 2005 to 2007, and how much has changed since then. So much happened then that would never be excused now.

Some people say it's because everyone is so sensitive now, but I think it's because people have actually lost their tolerance for the bullshit. They're trying to be more empathetic than ever, and that comes with holding those accountable who were made powerful at the expense of marginalized communities.

And while this book is absolutely a work of fiction and meant solely for escapism and enjoyment (as all of my writing is and always will be, too), I still stand by my remarks in my previous chapter about how SM placed Jasper in a real time, in a real place, who would experience real events that effect a very real society today. As storytellers, I do think we have a responsibility and an opportunity to acknowledge these realities instead of letting them pass us by.

I think there's an opportunity to take ownership of these wrongs and use them as tools to make a kinder world, as I hope a two hundred year old vampire or even a regular person would. We all have the opportunity to create change, even if it's done in small, seemingly inconsequential ways.

I have proof of that by you guys alone commenting on my chapters when you ask how I'm doing, or have sent me well wishes during the worst time in my life. Me. A stranger to you, who may share nothing more in common with you than carrying a very strange and undying love for Twilight and its vampires. I've talked about it before, but it bears reminding that I really don't know what I would do without an occasional notification from someone adding this story to their favorites list, or leaving a comment about how they've binged this story and love Blaire, and Jasper, and my writing.

I wrote this chapter in a way that I hope lets you know you are just as powerful and capable of positive change and inspiring others.

And of course, if this chapter feels mishandled in any way, please let me know.

Okay bye if you made it all the way down here that was long as heck. I'll see you guys in February!