Wow.

I got ahead of myself a bit and missed this chapter. Sorry. I was already to work this morning before I realized my mistake. So here is the one I missed, which is one of my favorites so far and I hope you all enjoy it.

Also, I'm still going to recommend that you all read The Long Road Home; The Journey of Alice and Jasper by J. Anne Brown. It's excellently written and you wont be disappointed, I promise.

That all being said, thank you all for reading and I apologize for my hair-brainedness and will pay closer attention in the future when I upload my chapters.

Allora

For shame on you
Who cares about me anyway
I don't mind you
It'd mean so much if you'd just save me
Save me

All the fear and all the cares of the world
Never forced themselves into my arms
It was your fear that helped me
Your fear that got me to move
Straight from your heart into their sight

Fear – Evans Blue

As much as I'd loved criticizing Peter about going soft, I had let myself get weak. My self-righteous plan of abstinence had made me weak. I was slow. I was fatigued. I was just generally exhausted. But I would be damned if I let her see that. I forced my usual casual grace as I kept pace with her. All the same, I was thoroughly grateful when we came upon a clearing and she disappeared into the tall grass with a happy laugh.

When I came across where she had come to rest in the grass, I had to resist from taking her as my own. She looked exquisite with her eyes closed and the setting sun casting shadows against the contours of her face. And the way her dress only fell to just below her knees, leaving her shapely calves exposed. . . Women hadn't dressed like that when I'd been human and in Mexico, most people wanted to cover as much as they could, if only to keep hidden their scars. But not Alice . . .

Quit being an idiot, Jasper. You don't deserve anyone.

I sat down, stiffly, sure to keep as much distance between myself and her as possible without it seeming unnecessarily rude. But my eyes were still glued to her until she opened her eyes and I felt her all consuming doubt.

"Jasper," She began quietly and I relished the sound of my name on her lips. I had never noticed the way anyone else had said my name, but the way she said it was infinitely better. "Do you like me?" She asked and I was brought crashing back to reality. What could I say to that? That I'd just been imagining what it would be like to ravish her before I'd thought better of it? Of course I liked her, but she couldn't know that. It was wrong.

"Don't start that." I grumbled.

She sighed discontentedly and her lips turned into a frown. "No, I meant . . . you don't . . . not like me, do you?" She asked meekly. I could feel her mingled hope and doubt and knew instinctively that if I said yes it would irrevocably break her. And that was a thought I couldn't bear to even consider. So I told her the truth, though I thought it ought to have been obvious. After all, I wouldn't have just upped and ran off with a stranger if I hadn't found their company at least bearable.

"Of course I don't not like you. I'm here, with you, aren't I? You create far too intoxicating of a climate for me to do anything but like you." I snorted then froze as a wave of shock shot through me. Had I done that? Had I just revealed my gift to her? She'd told me about her gift, I tried to remind myself. But it didn't really count if she'd never considered it a secret.

"Climate?" She asked and I could feel the pique in her interest.

Now what? I could lie and make up something or I could say nothing at all. Or I could . . . trust her and tell her the truth. The possibility was strangely heady and intoxicating. I had never shared my secret with anyone of my own choice. Both Maria and Peter had eventually just figured it out on their own. But to trust someone of my choosing with my secret was . . . exciting. If she could be trusted. But I felt nothing but curiosity from her. No scheming, no ambition for dominance or ownership. She was just curious. But what about the suspicion that always came afterwards? No, I would deal with it then.

"I'm an empath and you're a very happy person. I like it." I answered truthfully.

And there it was. Doubt and . . . consternation? That made no sense. She wasn't angry or suspicious that I had been controlling her emotions. She was just a little upset that I could? I had to laugh at it. "That's it?" I asked. "I tell you I can turn you into a raging force of nature and all I get is consternation?"

She smiled at me playfully. "I'm already a force of nature."

I snorted and flopped back into the grass to look up at the sky next to her. It felt nice to trust, and it was only Alice who could have made me do it. Something about her blatant rejection of everything I knew to be normal had drawn me in. "I can't argue with that."

We lay in silence for a few minutes as I felt her churning hesitation and longing and interest. Finally she broke the silence, which might have been comfortable except for the fact that I could feel her every emotion. "Will you tell me about yourself, Jasper?" She asked softly.

I glared up at the puffy clouds above us. Yes, it felt nice, but she wanted to know this? What I was, what I had done for Maria, was probably the only thing short of outright attacking her that would drive her away. No, she couldn't know what I was. "I don't have a happy story. And with your . . . fixation with me, I don't think you should know more about me, regardless." I finished grumpily, reminding myself again that I could never allow myself to influence her life more than taking her to meet the Cullen's. There was no need to get over-attached on either of our parts.

"Is it so wrong that . . . traveling companions should know a bit about each other?" She asked as every word oozed of her discontent and disapproval.

I smirked when I felt them and held back my laughter. It was strange to have someone want to know me. But I wasn't about to tell her that you could go into any city in Mexico and find someone who knew my name, and probably someone I had killed. I wasn't about to tell her that I was one of the most feared and loathed vampires of the Southern Wars. I wasn't about to tell her that I had probably killed more vampires than she'd met in her entire life. No, I wasn't about to tell her that. No matter how determined she was.

"Then tell me about yourself first, ma'am. If you're so eager to learn my story, you ought to be willing to share yours, shouldn't you?" I urged, if only to distract her. I had absolutely no intention of telling her about myself.

She frowned and sat up, leaving her back to me as she drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. I felt a wave of sorrow hit me. I instantly regretted asking her. No doubt she didn't have much of a happy story either. But she told me anyway.

"I don't have a story. I don't remember being human. My first memories . . . I woke up like this. I didn't know who or what I was. On the inside of my dress there was a tag with my name on it. 'This garment belongs to: Mary Alice Brandon'. There was nothing else. Nothing I could remember of myself. I didn't even know what I looked like." She lamented and the immense volume of her sadness threatened to drown me. I hated the way her sorrow felt. I tried to tell myself that it was because I didn't like the way it felt, not because I didn't like to see her suffer, that I forcibly calmed her. Either way, I found myself sending waves of peace and serenity at her.

"Yours was the first face I saw. At first, I didn't understand what was happening. I was terrified that I had somehow teleported myself somewhere. It was bad enough that I already didn't know where or what I was, but at that moment I didn't know where I was going either.

"But then the vision faded and I was exactly where I had been before. I received other visions in the next few days, mostly of you, but some were of the Cullen's. Some were of you with me with the Cullen's. I knew I had to find you. I knew it was a diner that I would find you at. So I traveled, waiting in every diner I could find. Thousands of diners, Jasper. You have no idea how much I was starting to loath the sights and smells of the places. They were all the same, smelled the same, looked the same." Then she smiled triumphantly. "And then you showed up. You walked through the door, exactly how I had seen you walk through the door thousands of times."

I felt like an ass. This incredibly innocent girl had spent her entire existence looking for me. She had only ever known me, and I was thinking about turning her away without even telling her why. Even now I could feel her all-to-potent sorrow and self-pity through the thin veil of my calm. She had to understand why I couldn't have her, so she couldn't blame herself, which I was sure she would try to do. So I did the one thing I'd had absolutely no intention of doing a mere five minutes ago.

"In 1861, I joined the Confederate Army." I began, trying to plan how I would tell this to her without her running in shocked horror from me as I glared at the too-happy looking clouds above me. "I advanced through the ranks very quickly. I became a Major." These details were more or less unimportant. My human life was irrelevant to the crimes I had commit as a vampire, but it seemed like a good place to start, nonetheless. "I was on my way from Houston to Galveston when I came across three women. They were very beautiful to me, then. One of them, the smallest, sent the other two away. Her name was Maria, she's the one who changed me." I vastly edited the way she had seduced me or the three days of excruciating agony I had lived through as her venom coursed through my veins, slowly killing me but making me stronger. If she couldn't remember that, I wasn't about to remind her.

"Is she the reason you don't like that my name is Mary?" She asked, and I could feel her self-pity turn to insecurity and doubt.

Why did she care what I thought? But I smiled reassuringly at her. "It's foolish, but yes." And it was foolish. She was nothing like Maria. She had nothing of Maria's hellbent drive for control and domination. Nothing of Maria's blood lust. Nothing of Maria's demand. I ignored my reasoning. I still liked Alice better than Mary. I continued my story as I glared at the clouds again. I'd been so naive in the beginning. So clueless.

"At the time, I didn't realize that there was more that one war raging in the South. Maria was putting together an army of newborn vampires. A highly skilled, highly trained army of vampires. My ability proved useful for keeping the others in check so she eventually put me in charge of them. She had no choice, really. I was very good at what she wanted us to do. I was killing her soldiers faster than she could make them." There, I'd given her the first hint of what I was capable of.

"We retook Monterrey, Maria's home city, easily. Too easily. It made her greedy. We took other cities. We expanded our territories, mercilessly, until our allies turned on us. We were pushed back to Monterrey." I edited massively. There was no need to explain to her the very vivid scenes of battle I could remember of this period of my life. There was no need to give her a detailed description of the way the fires had smelled, choking out every other scent. No need to tell her how it was best to hide behind the smoking remains of someone who had once been your comrade in order to launch a surprise attack on your enemy and in order to save the precious seconds starting another fire to dispose of the body would waste. No, she didn't need to know these things. But she did need to know something horrifying. Something that would make her think better of her blind trust in her visions.

"We managed to hold onto the city, barely. We kept an army in reserve but it had to be . . . replaced every year. Maria would seek out new candidates. It was my job to dispose of the old, those who had outgrown their usefulness." I confessed.

There, that did it, I thought bitterly as her hands flew to her mouth to stifle her gasp of horror. I tried to ignore the sudden stab in my heart when I thought of her thinking badly of me. But I could hardly take back what I had just said. "You see now, Alice, don't you? You see the monster I am?" I groaned as I closed my eyes and tried to banish the image of her horror struck face.

"But you left." She persisted and I was astounded by her all-encompassing faith in me, not her visions. For all she knew, I could have been cast out or working for Maria still. But instead she thought the best of me.

"Yes, I left. Two newborns escaped. One of them had been my friend. He returned a few years later to tell me about the new life he had. The way life was away from the wars of the South." I grumbled. The gratitude I felt for Peter taking the time and risk to come back for me did not outweigh my outrage at his blatant misuse of authority and attack on me. "I left with them, without even telling Maria I was going. She was going to turn on me anyway."

Her worry wasn't that out of place. If I were her, I'd probably be worried too, worried that Maria might send people after me, worried that I might hurt her, worried that she might have made a mistake after all.

"But weren't you traveling with your friends before you met me? Wont they miss you?" She asked.

No, that was probably one of the last things I would have worried about if I were her. I almost laughed at her. "No. I haven't been with Peter and Charlotte for months. It didn't feel -"

I cut off as something altogether foreign and familiar crossed my emotional sensors. A third aura exhibiting the kind of violence and mindlessness I hadn't felt since leaving Mexico. A newborn. I was on my feet and dragging her behind me before even fully considering my options. I would protect Alice, if only because she was the first person I'd ever met to have faith in just . . . goodness. She didn't deserve to be scarred by this kind of brutality.

I let out a growl of frustration as I faced the way my intruder would emerge. I scented him moments later, smelling of human blood and the faint, lingering scent that I knew came with burning vampires.

"We don't know that they mean us any harm." Alice said softly behind me as she put her hand gently on my shoulder as though to restrain me.

Leave it to Alice to assume the best of people. I knew our intruder meant harm. But for her sake I would let her see for herself. I stood up out of my offensive crouch but I didn't relax. I would grant the stranger the first move, just so Alice would see that the world was a dangerous place.

He burst through the underbrush across the clearing from us and froze as he saw us and finally picked up our scents. A surge of lust and the desire to dominate and hurt rose in him the moment he laid eyes on Alice. If things went badly here, Alice would suffer. Not that I had any desire not to destroy him. I snarled to bring his attention back to me. There was the fear and trepidation I was used to.

"Jasper, he could be a friend." She chided. I ignored her this time. There was no way this man could be a friend as he approached us warily. In fact, there was no way I was going to leave him alive long enough to become a friend if he continued to approach. No, the only way I would have let him live is if he had turned around and fled at the sight of us.

"You're in my territory." He hissed angrily at me.

"We're just passing through." Alice said quickly, conceding dominance to him immediately.

"This land has never been claimed." I growled, attempting to salvage the conversation.

"I claim it." The man professed. "I claimed it when I killed my maker."

"Then we'll be on our way." Alice said meekly. Really, how had she survived this long? Everyone knew you could only do two things when you trespassed against someone. Submit or die. As I had no intention of doing the first, which he damn well knew judging by the steadily increasing hostility of his emotions, then it was going to come to a fight.

"He wont let us be on our way, Alice. He wants to kill us." I hissed harshly. "Just like all newborns, he's driven by the illogical need to kill everything in sight."

I got the satisfaction of watching the surprise cross his face before he launched himself at me. He had little choice, really. I don't know if I would have let him go in peace by now anyway. Of course, he was going to have to do a lot better than a direct charge at me. I skipped out of the way and lashed out at him, forcing him back a step as I caught a satisfactory glimpse of Alice standing rigidly motionless in fear.

He danced to the right and I cut him off before he could come between Alice and myself. I knew what he was doing. He was testing me. It was exactly what I would have done if I were in his position. Of course, I would have known better than to attack a man who was trying to protect his mate.

She's not your mate, Jasper.

That's right, she wasn't my mate, it would just look like that to an outsider. We were just . . . traveling companions. I squashed the distaste my own thoughts had created. I would never have risked my life for a 'traveling companion'. No, the old Jasper wouldn't have. Jasper of Monterrey wouldn't have. But maybe this Jasper would. Or I was fooling myself and letting myself get attached to her.

The newborn charged at me, my momentary distraction costing me precious ground. Fighting came so naturally to me that I rarely had to bend all my thought to it. But I was trying to protect Alice. I was trying to keep her innocent and unmarred. I needed to focus. I needed to concentrate. I needed to end this.

I felt Alice's frantic spike in fear and panic a fraction of a second before I saw her launch herself at the newborn, landing effortlessly on the man's back. What the hell did she think she was doing? And then she ruthlessly and efficiently sank her teeth into the tender skin of the newborn's neck and decapitated him.

I could see it in her face, feel it in her emotions, she had no idea what she'd just done. That she'd been capable to doing it. She didn't try to extricate herself from the dead limbs of the newborn as it fell to the ground. When the blatant shock hadn't left her eyes in two seconds, I went to her and pulled her into my arms.

"Are you mad?" I demanded, frustratedly. Did she have any concept of how dangerous what she'd just done was? "You could have been hurt or killed." I fumed as I looked her over. She looked completely unharmed however, physically, though I could still feel her surreal shock.

"But you would have been hurt." She croaked as she slowly started coming back to reality. Then she imitated snipping my right hand off with two of her fingers. She'd put herself in danger to save me? Of all the unworthy reasons to put herself in danger, that was probably at the top of the list. Of course, she probably thought it was one of the best reasons to risk life and limb. And I had to admit, she had moved admirably. The way she had landed and gone straight to business, as though with practiced efficiency, had been perfectly executed, despite the fact that that aftermath had proven otherwise. It came to her naturally. My natural, little killer.

I almost smirked, "And I thought I was a monster." I teased. In Mexico, it had been rare to find newborns with such a natural aptitude at killing. Only those who possessed it had any hope of surviving for longer than a year. Peter had had it. As had I, apparently. And so did Alice. Deadly little Alice, who would have thought?

As much as I would have loved to stand there admiring her, there were other things that needed to be done here before we could leave. It had happened to me once, dismemberment without being burned. Once I'd managed to put myself back together, I'd been so blindingly furious that I'd spent almost a month rigorously seeking out the men who had harmed me. I wouldn't risk the newborn coming after Alice.

What came next came naturally to me. In fact, I usually wouldn't have left it this long. The dismemberment and burning of an enemy was common, but I could feel Alice's disgust and exasperation, so I finished my task as quickly as possible.

"Is all this necessary?" She whined and I could see the way she was sickened by the blackened pieces of the newborn in front of her. Did she think I was being unnecessarily cruel? Did she think this was something I enjoyed doing?

"Yes. Unless you want him to put himself back together and hunt us down." I scowled, moodily tossing the last piece into the fire. I felt her responding mixture of surprise and fear and nervousness and realized that she hadn't known. She hadn't know the force it took to kill one of us, but she'd still jumped in and tried to help me.

I hated the way her fear felt. It was almost like a taste under my tongue and I hated that I was the one who had shown her these things. I should have thought. I should have simply fled with her before the newborn had caught sight of us. I hated the way that already I was starting to strip away her naive innocence.

I forced away her fear and replaced it with calm and peace as I pulled her into a one-armed hug. "Thank you." I muttered as I swallowed down my pride. Gratitude was a tough emotion for me to come by, but she had saved me from what would most likely have been a couple days of enraged agony by the end of which I would have wanted to resurrect the newborn only so I could kill him again. She deserved my thanks.

And of course the gesture was misinterpreted. I felt her comfort, her love, for me and almost groaned. What the hell had I done to deserve this trust from her? She breathed in deeply and I felt her love become tinged with a dash of lust, for me, scarred and damaged as I was. I thought she must not have come across that many potential mates before, because anyone who could be lusting after me needed to get their eyes checked. But it felt nice to be the center of positive attention for once, and she had just saved me from a lot of pain, so I let her be in peace. Tomorrow I'd have to put down boundaries. Tomorrow I'd have to tell her in no uncertain terms just what we could and couldn't be. Tomorrow.

It wasn't until now that I realized I hadn't even once secretly considered letting the newborn finish me. I had not once yearned for the death that had been denied from me for so long. But only because Alice would have suffered if I'd failed, I told myself. That was the only reason. I would still have to reject her tomorrow.