Jasper took the driver's seat again. "We head west," I told him. "And we have lots of time to become acquainted before we reach the Cullens."
"I'd like that."
"So would I. I've had other visions of you, before you reached the diner. You were with two vampires, a man and woman. Who are they?"
"Peter and Charlotte. Peter helped me leave my former existence."
"Really? That wasn't the impression I got," I said, slightly confused. "He seemed fairly young and Charlotte even more so."
"That wasn't what I meant."
I waited, but he didn't continue. He had to know I was getting impatient. "So what did you mean?" I finally burst out.
He sighed. "Let's fill the tank first, and then I'll start at the beginning. I hope you have a way to ..." he trailed off, obviously embarrassed that he wasn't able to take care of this.
"Yes, I'll go inside and pay." I grabbed my handbag, from the back seat. "And Jasper, I know you haven't decided to do this, but you are considering it. Don't harm the attendant, all right? We can hunt again soon if you need." I leveled serious eyes at him. "I really can afford this car and it's upkeep — you don't need to eliminate problems that way." The vision and been brief and stuttered. It really was just a passing possibility and far from a certain future.
His eyes dropped. "Yes, I understand. And no, I don't need to hunt again... yet. Maybe tomorrow?" He looked up at me and I smiled at him, hoping he felt my love, my care and no admonition at all.
"Tomorrow. I'm sure we'll pass something appropriate."
Just then a pimpled teenage boy came up to Jasper's window. "Fill it up for you?"
"Yes, thank you." Jasper replied.
The boy had just started wiping the windshield as I stepped out of the car. Inside an older woman, probably the boy's mother, was behind the till reading a pulp paperback. "Can I help you ma'am?"
"Just stretching my legs," I lied as I looked around the small counter, hoping to find what wasn't likely to be here. But it was, of course. I pointed to a pair of dark glasses on a shelf behind the woman, "On second thought, are those for sale?"
She turned to look over her shoulder. "Oh, those are my husband's, but he can buy another pair."
"I would appreciate it. I have my own, but my husband doesn't."
"Uh-huh" she muttered, "Well I'm not sure what to charge you for them. John bought these and I have no idea what he paid."
I laid a couple bills on the counter. "Will this cover the glasses and the gas?"
Her eyes popped a bit. Overpaying always resulted in less questions and fond memories.
Jasper and I pulled away and were zipping down the highway before he began his tale again. "I can still remember some small bits of being a confederate soldier." I gasped. I knew Jasper was older than me, but I didn't expect so many decades difference.
He looked at me. "I'm much younger than you," I whispered. "I didn't expect the gap between us to be so large."
He smiled. "The gap between us is wide, but not in the way you think. But perhaps you will not understand my history or how it fits into the history of our... cohort." It was far easier to think the word vampire than to say it aloud.
"I might not. I know very little of... our kind. I don't even know how I came to be. Just waking up. You are the first person I've really talked to."
"Hm, then I shall have to explain the sense of conquest some of our kind exhibit." He proceeded to describe the nature of Maria, his creator, and how she built an army of young vampires to reclaim her lands in the south. I was aghast, horrified and speechless; I was rapt.
"You... you destroyed... others... like us?" I had trouble imagining it at all. We were not easy to kill. It was utterly impossible to picture this man, the one I loved, doing such a thing.
He turned to look at me, the worry on his face plain. He thought I was afraid. No, he knew I was afraid. But as I reviewed everything he'd just told me, the new world he'd described that I hoped never to see with my own eyes, I realized that he wasn't there anymore. He'd left that. He couldn't be a part of that. My fear changed; no longer of him but for him.
He must have sensed the change and chuckled. "Where did you think I got these?" he asked, touching his throat.
I ran my fingers over several of the crescent shaped scars. If I'd been human, my hand would have trembled. "I didn't know."
"You didn't have any ideas?" He arched an eyebrow.
I shook my head. "I only see the future, not the past. I wouldn't have seen anything before you left with Peter. My first images of you were probably long after you'd left."
"You must have had a guess."
"Ummm." I really didn't want to say this out loud, but his eyes were piercing. "Saving silly girls like me?"
He threw his head back and laughed. "I like your version better," he managed between guffaws.
"Tell me more? It scares the hell out of me, but I want to understand. It's like learning more about myself when I learn of our kind, when I learn of you." I felt an emotion pulse through me and then pass quickly. "That wasn't intentional, was it?" I asked.
"No," he was adamant. "You initiated in the forest, but I don't want you to think I'll take advantage of any... familiarity resulting from a moment of impulse."
I thought about that for a minute.
"Pull over," I commanded. As soon as he stopped the car I slapped him. Not full armed, but enough the he felt it and the sound reverberated the windows. His face showed he expected nothing less; that infuriated me more.
"You think it was just an impulse? You think I haven't already decided to spend the rest of whatever time I have with you? I don't plan to be your accessory. I plan to be your partner, so you'd better learn to take advantage of me, in every sense, in every way I can give you advantages. From my visions, to my diet, to my tiny girlie body. It's all yours. I have spent decades trying to find you. You aren't some passing fancy." I flopped back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest.
He was silent for a moment, then stroked my cheek. "I apologize for leading you to believe I thought of you as any less than my hope, my salvation. In that sense I do plan to take full advantage of you. I've been trying to change my life for decades, and you did it. You found me. Peter took me out of that life, but you're the one who is bringing me a new one. If you are an accessory, you are a piercing that can never be removed."
I flinched.
"I'm sorry. You got me rambling. Very romantic..." he trailed off, shaking his head.
I chuckled. "Yeah, the imagery is grotesque, but the sentiment was right." I kissed his cheek. "Well, it's tomorrow. We should probably start our hunt before it becomes light out." I leaned over him to check the gas gauge. I felt his breath in my hair. "Yep, if I plan this right we can hit a station outside town during a cloudy stretch."
His hand hovered over my back, but I could see he wouldn't put it against my skin — stubborn man. Well, I'd be damned, again, if I was going to make the first move twice. I backed up and waited for him to open my door. Pink was just touching the eastern sky.
The trees on the north side of the highway were sparse and we took care not to linger out of the shadows as the sun began to climb. There was no big game to be found in this wilderness. It wasn't wild so much as untamed farmland, but I did pick up the scent of two deer. Jasper could have both if he liked, I didn't need to feed again yet.
His nose wrinkled as I watched him catch the scent. "Is that dinner?" he asked, unsure.
"If all you want is to curb the thirst, it will do. Are you feeling strong enough to resist the people at the next station?" I asked, gauging his response.
He sighed. "Not really, no. I held my breath at the last one."
I blinked slowly. I hadn't thought of doing that. "Well, these are all yours." I jumped into the tree I was standing under, so I could watch his hunt. I knew he'd only take the doe, the fawn would escape, but visions, even ones as close as this, were never as concrete as watching for myself.
He hesitated another second as though steeling his stomach for bad cooking and then rushed through the brush. He was so fast. It was like a snake's strike. He was here and then he was there. Even with enhanced senses, it was hard to follow. I leaped from tree to tree until I was almost directly over him. I stretched out on the branch on my belly and rested my head on my hands. He was so beautiful. His hair gleamed now in the sun. The scars on his cheek stood out too with the tiny shadows they cast. The curve of his ear, his long white neck...
Snap.
I had time to land gracefully on my feet but was still impressed he'd managed to break the bough before I saw it. He stood over me, so tall, holding the thick piece of wood in his hands. I could hear his breath come more quickly. His chest seemed wider with it. He put his arms around me and pulled me to him. I laid my ear to his chest and sighed. I had seen us standing like this many times, in many places. He ran a hand through my hair and then shook it out. He had not accounted for my gel. I backed up and laughed hard enough to double over. I managed to stop enough to stutter, "I'll wash it out... next stop... promise." My peals continued to ring in the air.
"Is it time?"
I cocked an eyebrow. Time and me, so many things that could mean.
"For the next stop," he clarified.
I looked to the sun. "We can head back to the car, but we'll either have to drive slowly or kill ten minutes."
He nodded and took my hand. "I think I can find something to fill the time." He pressed my hand to his lips and led me away.
His idea was not what I'd hoped for. I maintained my pledge to myself to wait for him to make the next move. Instead, he asked me to tell him what little I remembered from before my awakening.
"Very little. I heard a voice saying he would save me, but I always thought it was you and I had confused myself. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe I was human then and he, who ever he was, thought he was saving me when he made me this. It wasn't until you told me your story that I realized we were human, once. All I remember is being a vampire. I used to think I was born this way."
"You don't remember the pain?" When I didn't answer he elaborated, "Of being changed. The burning?"
"I remember a burning at the very beginning. Then I fed on that man. Then I started my search for the diner."
"You didn't hunt?"
"Not right away."
"I thought all newborns hunted."
"I certainly fed often in the beginning — I was still collecting information from my visions. It was a few months before I understood the Cullens fed on animals, and that this was an option. I still slip up occasionally. I lost the best stock broker that way. Fortunately his associate wired me the bad news, of his disappearance, and offered to take over my accounts."
"Stocks." I could tell he'd just put together the last piece of the puzzle that was the fine vehicle in which he sat.
"Well, I needed a way to search for you. As I adapted to my new diet, I was able to interact more and more with humans. That's when I started designing clothing."
"Ah, designing. Not a seamstress."
"No, I only work with new cloth, and I would never be able to give a fitting. What if I stuck her with a pin? We should leave soon if we want to arrive on time."
He seemed satisfied with his few answers and started the ignition.
I left him the cash to pay for the gas while I sought the washroom with my carpet bag in hand. I dug out the shampoo from under my change of clothes. I'd only used it once before. I lathered up my scalp and rinsed all the gel down the rusted drain. I used one of the blouses to dab the excess water, then shook my head vigorously. As usual, my hair stuck out in every direction. I fussed with it a little, making the peaks a little more even at least. I sighed and dropped my blouse in the bag again. Short and spiked might be fashionable one day, but it was not today.
Jasper smiled as I entered the car, and I felt my insecurity wash away. "You look lovely" he assured me. Then he put his nose into my hair. "It'll be even better when your scent isn't masked." I smiled back at him.
We stopped and started several times in the next hours. Along the way, I prompted him on his past. "So, Maria was your partner?"
"Sort of. I don't think she liked to think of me as her equal, but I was her closest associate."
"So... just you, her and raging newborns."
"Yes. She did turn to me for companionship. She turned to me for tactics. She turned to me for assistance."
"And you?"
"She gave me my pick of humans for feeding; my choice for turning. She gave the best of what she had, but aside from blood, she had little to offer."
"But she offered more."
He gave an exasperated sigh. I almost did, too. How many ways did I have to ask this?
"Yes. She hoped I would be a partner in more ways. We tried. At first my urges made me oblivious to her other drives, but her emotions were always bent on conquest, and I knew she saw me as no more than a tool, one she appreciated, one she took special care of, but still just a tool. It wasn't..." he held his breath a moment. "I knew love before I met you only by sensing it between Peter and Charlotte. It is so much more... intense first-hand."
"I understand. Visions never equal the experience for me either. Probably works that way so we remember to live for ourselves."
I felt emotion ripple through me again. This time I was feeling much the same, and it wasn't as noticeable. We were facing each other so that our skin would be less exposed to the sunlight. I leaned forward and watched his indecision as he warred with the impulse to lean into me. I was NOT going to step first again. And I was not going to hold my breath. Well, I was going to try not to hold my breath. Breath Alice, I ordered myself. When I complied it was a gasp. Jasper flinched back, and I realized just how close we had been. I sighed and shook my head, turning forward as the clouds rolled in once more. This was my signal to him and he pulled away.
"Tell me more of Peter and Charlotte?" I pleaded once we were underway.
He smiled. "Peter is almost a brother to me. In the beginning he was just a useful ally. A few months later he was a comrade. I don't even remember when Charlotte joined us. Knowing how quickly the newborns came and went, I made a point not to get to know any of them until they'd survived a year. Peter, obviously, didn't do the same. He bonded to Charlotte in the months she was with us. Seeing them together, I can understand why. Although they look alike enough to be siblings, they are opposites. Peter is impulsive, that's why he jumped to Charlotte's defense and rescue. That's why he came back for me. She tried to talk him out of it. She weighs risks the way the post weighs parcels, to the ounce. Peter is strong of will. Once he decides his course he is resolute. Charlotte always looks for another option. Even once on a chosen track, with her way of weighing risks, she quickly adapts her plans as options arise. He's easy-going. He has a kind word for everyone and thing. He takes things as they come. Charlotte can find a fault anywhere. She is tenacious in seeking what she wants, which is how she convinced Peter to leave. At first, I wondered how they didn't drive each other to distraction, but as I traveled with them, I learned that their differences just made them stronger together."
I let visions flick in one part of my mind as I focused intently on his words. The admiration he felt for his friend was evident. And I could tell he had come to admire Charlotte, too. I hoped he would find in me the strengths to balances his weaknesses.
"Slow down." I told him in the middle of another tale, this of another nomad they'd encountered in Boston.
He was surprised at the interruption but our speed declined immediately.
"There is a sheriff waiting at the bottom of the next hill. I don't have a license, do you?"
"Maybe we'll have to rectify that."
"Perhaps. That was how I learned the Cullens' names. They had several documents made."
His eyes were interested again. "And what are their names?"
"Carlisle and Esme. Rosalie and Emmett. And Edward. I'll sketch you pictures of them!" I realized that this would appease some of his curiosity and pulled my grid pad out of the carpet bag along with a pencil.
He smiled.
I outlined five figures. Rosalie with Emmett on her left and Esme on her right. Carlisle with his arm around Esme's shoulders and Edward tucked in a little behind Carlisle. I grinned broadly as I drew my family. I was feeling closer to them now that we were on our way. It was crucial I find Jasper as soon as I could, for his sake. I'd had to delay meeting the Cullens although I knew where they were. I'd seen them and their hunting grounds, the large white house, the small town of Forks where Carlisle worked in the hospital. I'd seen so much of them and their home. I couldn't wait to see it fully. The distance from these visions made them very flat. I wanted the real thing. I started on Edward's features when a new vision struck me.
"No!" I shouted. The pencil snapped in my hand.