Chapter 10- Jasper

It's been over two weeks since Bella moved in, and the scent of the nomads has almost completely washed out of the peninsula. I found Rosalie and Edward waiting in the clearing where we usually met after our patrolling shifts.

"You find anything?"

"No. It's the same path that led up north. Their scent is very faint now," Rosalie said.

"I didn't find anything either." Edward shook his head.

"It's supposed to rain tomorrow. Their scent will be completely gone by then." At this point, all our searches seemed futile. There was no sign they were coming back any time soon. I guess I should've been relieved, but I would feel much safer knowing they were dead.

"Do you think they're coming back?" Rosalie asked.

"I have no idea." We couldn't risk them coming back with a shield that powerful. Until we all left Forks, we had to keep looking out for them every single day.

"How did that shopping trip go, yesterday?" Edward asked. He was hardly ever in the house anymore. Not that he even needed to be anyway. He had his own cottage far away in the wilderness to keep to himself. He was hell bent on keeping Bella alive and didn't trust himself to be around her. Funny how the tables have turned, and he was the one who struggled to be around humans.

"The most bizarre thing happened right when we were about to leave," Rosalie began.

I replayed the events of Bella's encounter with a random woman in my head for Edward to hear. Turns out she wasn't so random. Bella had a friend named Olivia who her mother claimed committed suicide. Bella appeared surprised, and the two were both crying into each other's shoulders. Despite Alice's pestering on the car ride back home, Bella wouldn't talk about what happened, instead choosing to stare out the window the whole time.

Edward began radiating anxiety and guilt, and I knew he was hiding something.

"What is it?" I demanded. He inhaled a deep breath he didn't need to take.

"Okay, I have a secret. This can't get back to Carlisle,," he revealed.

"How bad could it be that Carlisle can't find out?" Rosalie sneered.

"It's pretty bad," he began. "It was a couple nights ago. I hacked into Bella's phone while she was sleeping, and started scrolling through her messages and photos to see if there was anything suspicious."

"You went into her room while she was there?" I asked, shocked. He was so frightened to be around her, and I knew Carlisle wouldn't approve. I didn't know he had it in him.

"I didn't breathe. Alice was the only other one home, and she watched me to make sure it was safe."

"You're right. Carlisle would be pissed. Not only is that a complete invasion of privacy, but it's also stupid. If she's working with vampires, I think they'd be smarter than to communicate over the phone where anyone could intercept," I argued.

"Well, how else would they communicate? She never leaves the goddamn house. And I don't trust her the way everyone else does," Edward shot back.

"What did you find?" Rosalie inquired.

"She has Facebook and Instagram accounts, but there's no posts on them. I scrolled through her contact lists. She had Carlisle and Angela's numbers and some other random people. After profiling them, they're all just some humans who once attended Forks High. I looked through her photos, and there was nothing substantial. She's barely taken any photos since last year. Then I checked her text messages."

"Wow, what a detective you are. Did you find any devious conversations with a vampire?" Rosalie rolled her eyes, clearly bored with his findings.

"No, she's only been talking to Angela as of recently. It was mostly mindless chit chat, but Olivia did come up in the conversation. Bella told her that she hasn't felt the same since she was killed."

"She was killed? That doesn't make any sense." Suddenly, I was questioning my beliefs about Bella. Perhaps I was too quick to assume her innocence. How the fuck would Bella know her friend was murdered if she was found dead in her bathtub. Unless Bella had something to do with it.

"Did Bella mention how she was killed?" Rosalie was thinking the same way I was, her skepticism building inside.

"No, she didn't go into detail," Edward said.

"Okay, we can't let Carlisle know. Not yet. But something isn't adding up. Either Bella isn't telling the truth about how she died or she was murdered and someone's trying to cover it up."

"Well, I don't think Bella was lying. I read through Bella's messaging history with Olivia. They used to live together. Olivia threw Bella out of their apartment in March of last year. There were several heated arguments between them, and eventually Olivia just stopped responding to Bella. Then last month, she reached out again, and they agreed to go to dinner together. The last text Bella sent to her was on June 8th asking if she arrived at some fish bar in Seattle."

"You don't think Bella killed her, do you?" Rosalie considered.

"No, that's just being paranoid," I declared. Was it though? "I don't think she's clever enough to devise a scheme to frame her murder as a suicide. Someone else is behind this."

There was something suspicious going on behind Olivia's death, and something told me a vampire was involved. Ever since Bella showed up in town, all kinds of peculiar phenomena have been happening. First, three nomads traveled directly to the center of already claimed territory, all magically having the ability to block our gifts. Carlisle brought a human home with the exact same ability. Then we find out she had a friend supposedly committed suicide, but Bella knew it was a murder somehow. I didn't want to believe the nomads were involved with Bella, but now it seemed plausible.


Ever since my conversation with Edward, I've kept an eye out for Bella. I was internally conflicted. On the one hand, she appeared like a normal, innocent human just trying to survive, but there was so much mounting evidence suggesting she had alternative reasons for being here. It was too much to ignore.

Bella had a simple daily routine. Sleep until noon, then Alice or Esme would help her come downstairs. Eat, lay on the couch for hours, eat, and go back upstairs to presumably lay in bed for hours. I couldn't spy on her, so the next best way to observe her was to actually spend time with her.

I started eating lunch with her every morning, eating the god awful dog pile that was the food Esme made. To save face, I ate the whole serving Esme provided, throwing up outside when Bella was done. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I'd rather put dirt in my mouth, but I did this all for the sake of protecting our family. At least that's what I told myself. Once Bella would migrate to the TV, I stayed in the kitchen to watch her, pretending to be reading a book.

Our meals were usually quiet. I didn't quite know what to say to her. I really wanted to grill her about what happened to her friend, see if I could get her to crack. There was no subtle way to bring that up. I wasn't supposed to know anything about it. Bella still hadn't said a single thing about it to anyone.

I thought back to our first real conversation in Port Angeles. We talked about books. She convinced me to buy some random jacket I didn't want. Somehow, I couldn't say no to her like I would've said to anyone else. However, I realized if I started wearing it in front of her, I could get her to trust me and open up more.

It was a Saturday night, and Bella and I were sitting together, eating dinner. Rosalie, Emmett, and Carlisle were all at work, Edward was in his usual hiding spot, and Alice was out fucking around with her human friends she would end up leaving in a year anyway.

"So Jasper, tell me what you like to do for fun?" Bella asked when she was almost done with her plate.

I thought for a moment. Many of the things I found entertaining I couldn't share with her. "Not much. Just reading as you know. Listening to music. Playing music."

"You play music? What instruments?"

More than she could ever imagine. With all the time on my hands, I learned to play almost every instrument under the sun. "Just the guitar and drums."

"You'll have to show me sometime." I doubted that. I rarely played anymore, especially in front of people.

"What about you? What do you like to do for fun?"

"I used to like drinking and partying," she laughed. Didn't all humans under 25. "But seriously, I just like movies and listening to music. I can't play anything."

"What music do you like?"

"Just pop music basically, what about you?"

"I listen to a lot of random shit. Mostly from the 60s and 70s. I have a pretty vast vinyl collection."

"Oh, so you're one of those people," Bella giggled while drinking from her glass.

"What are those people?" I inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"You know those music nerds who love classic rock and know every Beatles record. They have a whole room in their house crammed with records, half of which they never listened to."

I had half a room crammed with vinyl records, and I have listened to each and every one of them multiple times.

"You know there's more music out there than just the Beatles."

"Oh yeah? Show me then. I would like to see."

I froze, not expecting that. She was really asking to enter a vampire's room, only she most likely didn't know that. I never brought anyone in there, least of all a human. The Cullens rarely even ventured inside. They knew that was my one place to seek privacy in a house where I could hear everything.

"Or nevermind. It doesn't matter." Bella looked down at her hands.

"I'll show you. Come on," I said without thinking. Bella perked up, and I helped her stand up again and walk upstairs to my room.

Bella appeared excited about to venture into my room for the first time, but I had no way of knowing what she was actually feeling. Once inside, Bella looked around, examining everything up and down. I felt raw and exposed, and I shouldn't have been. It's not like this was a secret vampire lair filled with dead bodies and bottles of blood. Mr room could pass for an average human bedroom. Well, a bit more peculiar than average.

"Wow, this is a huge collection you have. This is so cool." Bella had her eyes glued at my shelf filled with towering records from the floor to the ceiling.

"You can look through it if you want," I suggested.

"I don't know if I should be touching any of them." She stood back, seeingly unsure of herself.

"Most of them are used and scratched up. I'm not picky about things being in good condition like Alice."

Bella laughed. "If you say so. I guess." She graced her fingers across the shelves, pulling out a few records and staring at the covers. Some of these I've owned since the 40s. She was unknowingly in direct contact with history. My history.

"I don't really know the names of any of these bands," she said confused.

I wouldn't expect her to. She didn't have over sixty years of spare time to listen to thousands of records.

"There might be a Beatles or Stevie Wonder record in there if you keep looking."

"There's a lot of old Motown stuff in here."

"Yeah, I listened to a lot of that before."

"You're an old soul. I can tell. I bet you don't have one album in here released after I was born," she insisted.

"Try me. You'd be surprised."

She kept looking and eventually pulled out an Aretha Franklin album, one that I hadn't touched in years.

"Wow, I can't believe you own this. I love Aretha. I only know some of her hits though."

"I inherited a lot of these from my parents," I lied. I had to make myself seem like a reasonable mortal.

"Do you have a record player?"

"In one of my drawers." I was about to search for it when I heard Alice burst through the front door downstairs with her two giggly friends behind her. I sighed. I knew they were coming over, but I was praying they would be hit by a train on the way here. They walked upstairs, finding Bella and I standing by the doorway.

"There you are, Bella. These are my friends, Lizzie and Briana." Alice was beaming with joy, seemingly adding Bella to her group of friends. Elizabeth and Briana, the two most annoying creatures on the planet, stared at Bella in awe as if she were our new pet dog.

"Hi. It's nice to meet you guys," Bella greeted shyly.

"You're so pretty," Briana cheered.

"Aw. Thank you. You as well." Bella looked down at her plate, her cheeks flushing.

"Bella, come with us. We got a lot of stuff planned."

I stifled a laugh at the look of pure defeat on Bella's face. She didn't even attempt to protest before Alice dragged her out of her seat and forced her to follow her to her room.


An hour later, Alice came back into my room with Bella and her friends following close behind. Only, Bella looked different. The moment she stepped into the room, I couldn't take my eyes off her.

"Jasper, look at Bella. What do you think?" Alice proudly showed off Bella like she was in a beauty pageant for toddlers.

I didn't know what to say. Clearly, Alice gave all the girls a makeover, and Bella received a free haircut. Her curly hair was styled and hung in layers framing her delicate face. Her skin looked perfectly smooth and creamy. I didn't realize until now just how beautiful she was, not that she wasn't attractive before.

Alice stared at me, willing me to open my mouth. "I think you should become a hairstylist. Looks great."

"Thanks." Bella blushed. It was true. Alice really did know how to enhance anyone's natural features, human or vampire. Of course, she was beaming with pride, and Briana and Elizabeth were also very happy. Bella's emotions still remained a null void, and I wished more than ever to know what she was really feeling.

"Bella, we're gonna watch a movie. What do you wanna watch? Oh Jasper, you should watch it too."

"Do I even have a choice?" I whispered under my breath.

"I don't care what we watch. Anything is fine," Bella decided.

Alice led us down to the living room where everyone had magically gathered except for Edward. Rosalie and Emmett were cuddling in the love seat, while Alice and her friends took their place on the couch by the window. There was no other room, so Bella and I sat next to each other on the couch opposite the TV. Her scent engulfed the air around me, and I took it all in. It honestly didn't bother me at all, the way most humans would in close proximity.

"Let's see what's on." Briana took the remote and started flipping through channels.

"Oh, the Wizard of Oz. I haven't seen this in ages," Elizabeth cried.

"I love that movie. Bella, is that okay with you?" Alice asked.

"Yeah sure. That's fine," Bella told her. I couldn't tell if Bella really wanted to be here or not.

"Do you guys have popcorn?" Briana asked.

"I'll go make some," Esme called and headed to the kitchen. Rosalie shook her head in annoyance. Esme easily caved into the human's demands, and as a result, we'd all have to pay the price for it later.

A few minutes later, Esme came back into the room as the opening credits were almost over with a bowl of popcorn and passed it to Bella first. Bella took a handful and shoved them in her mouth, before handing the bowl over to me. "You want some?" she asked. I reluctantly nodded, just to keep up our charade.

I don't think I've even touched popcorn before. I've never been in a situation in my whole life where I would have to eat popcorn while watching a movie with a human. I picked up a few pieces that look like hairballs. After staring at them for too long, I chugged them in my mouth. It felt like swallowing rocks, and I had to restrain myself from spitting them back out. Bella sent me a side glance, obviously having noticed my pained facial expression.

I gave the bowl back to Bella. "You don't want anymore?" I shook my head.

"Alright. Does anyone else want some?"

"I'll try some," Emmett announced and walked over to take the bowl. Needless to say, he only took a few bites before passing the bowl back to Rosalie, who completely refuses to touch it. The bowl ends up next to Briana and Elizabeth who gobbled it up. Alice didn't bite. Bella observed us all with her eyebrows scrunched together. I could only imagine what she was thinking. She questioned us about our eating habits before. I hope this didn't add to her suspicions.

Throughout the duration of the movie, I occasionally glanced at Bella to see if she had any peculiar reactions. She seemed pretty engrossed in the film, and kept her eyes glued to the screen the whole time. I could feel complete and utter joy from Alice's friends once Dorthy entered the technicolor dreamland. I knew this film was a nostalgia fest for many people who watched it when they were kids. Briana and Elizabeth laughed and cheered the entire time like little children while Bella remained silent.

I remembered seeing The Wizard of Oz for the first time in theaters during the Great Depression. I came to the cinema for a meal, but I ended up staying to watch the whole thing. It was a magical experience. For many people, it was their first time seeing a movie in color. I'd seen a few beforehand, but this film felt different. The raw emotions of the audience filled the air. The children oscillated between pure excitement meeting all the new characters and terror whenever the Wicked Witch came across the screen.

At the end of the movie, Dorothy woke up from her dream and had her emotional reunion with her family. Bella was turned away from the screen with a tear sliding down her face.

The movie ended, and it was Carlisle and Esme's turn to be on patrol. Emmett and Rosalie decided to tag along. It was late at night now, and Briana and Elizabeth were ready to go to bed. Alice kissed Bella on the forehead and went upstairs to her room with her friends following behind. Now, Bella and I were left alone, sitting on the couch. Looking over at Bella, I saw her staring blankly at the other side of the room, unfeeling.

"Are you okay?" I asked her. I didn't know why, but I felt worried about her. I shouldn't have been.

She whipped her head towards me as if she was surprised to find someone else there.

"I'm fine. Why would I not be okay?" Her voice carried a monotonous tone.

"It looked like you got a little emotional near the end there."

"Oh shit. You saw that?" She buried her face in her hands.

"There's no need to feel embarrassed about it," I tried to comfort her. This was the first time I couldn't use my gift to make someone feel better. I was at a loss.

"I tried to hide it," Bella mumbled. "I just have a lot of memories with this movie. It was just all coming back."

"Have you seen this movie a lot before?"

"Yeah. I watched this movie countless times as a kid with my mom and grandma."

That's why she was crying. At least she had something to remind her of her lost loved ones. I wondered what that felt like. I had nothing from my human past. Just blank flashes in my memory.

"I did too," I lied, pretending I had a modern human childhood. "My parents used to watch a ton of older movies from the 40s and 50s. We watched this when it came on the TV quite a few times."

"I remember watching this movie for the first time when I was like five or so at my grandma's house. And I thought Oz was a real place that I would go to when I woke up like Dorthy. It's so dumb looking back at it now because I thought everything looked so real, but obviously now I can see how old this movie really is. All the effects look really fake."

I laughed. "Most children aren't viewing anything through a critical lens. I mean this is supposed to be a kids movie."

"That's true. I thought the Wicked Witch was real. I thought she was gonna take my mom and grandma away from me while I was asleep. I got so scared after the first time I watched this, and I slept in my mom's bed. I held onto her while she slept so she couldn't get away from me."

"That's really sweet," I whispered.

I could hear the pain in her voice when she talked about her mother. It was hard for humans to cope with the loss of their parents at such a young age. Everyone had to go through that loss at some point though. It wasn't a unique experience.

"Yeah, and my mom kept trying to convince me that the wicked witch wasn't real and nothing bad was gonna happen to her. It took me so long to believe her. God, that all feels so long ago. I guess I've been repressing those memories this whole time."

"I haven't seen this movie in a very long time either. I've only seen it a couple times. There's a lot of things I used to do as a kid that I've buried in my mind since my parents died, you know. I know how you feel."

Bella nodded in understanding. "Carlisle said your's and Rosalie's parents died in a car crash, right?"

It didn't feel right lying to her about this, but it was completely necessary. I gave humans fake backstories about my past all the time. This shouldn't have been any different.

"That's right. They just were hit head on by a drunk driver. Everything changed after that."

"Exactly. You know what it's like then." Bella looked down again and wiped a few more tears away with her shirt.

"I'm sorry." I put my hand on top of hers. I was shocked when I did that. It was instinctual, but I made no move to remove it. I waited to see how she would react. She didn't pull away. The warmth of her skin reminded me of placing my hands near the fire as a soldier in war camps.

"Don't be. Everyone loses the people they love. It happened so long ago for me."

"Just because everyone goes through loss doesn't mean you have to be ashamed of the pain you're feeling," I tried to soothe her.

"I'm not ashamed." She snapped her head toward me. "I just don't like breaking down in front of other people."

"No one does. But it's never good to keep our emotions bottled up inside. I know from experience." I thought of Edward or Rosalie pretending to be satisfied with their immortal lives, but eventually they would lash out.

"You're right," Bella sighed. "I didn't know you were a therapist."

If only she knew. "And you don't have to be ashamed to cry or do anything around me. I'm not gonna hurt you."

Bella smiled softly, but it didn't reach her eyes. She pulled her hand out from under mine, and I could tell all this emotional talk was starting to make her uncomfortable.

"You're too kind," she mumbled.

I really wasn't. I was inherently a selfish creature. But I was being excessively nice to her. Very unusual for me.

"I'm just me."

We sat in silence for a few moments, staring across the room. It felt nice to be surrounded by someone in comfortable silence. Rosalie was the only other person who really understood that. The Cullen household was too chaotic most of the time.

"I dressed up like Glinda once for Halloween. I was obsessed with her pink dress," Bella spoke after a while.

"I'd love to see a photo of that."

"My mom and grandma helped make it for me cause we couldn't find any Glinda costume in a store. But I loved wearing it. I have no idea what happened to that dress."

And I had no idea what happened to my childhood. My memories from that time were so hollow. I could only picture myself working on a farm, feeding cattle, and sleeping in a cabin at night. At least, Bella could still have some semblance of who she was as a kid. For the first time, I wished I could bring those memories back.

"Have you ever heard of the conspiracy theory that Glinda is actually the evil witch?" I asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Think about it. She could have just sent Dorothy home right when she landed in Oz. She made Dorothy, a seven year old girl, go on a long journey across an unknown land where there were so many monsters trying to kill her. The wicked witch almost killed her, and Glinda knew that could've happened, yet she did nothing to stop it."

"I never thought about that before," she pondered. "I mean, why did Glinda know to save Dorothy when she was poisoned in the meadow, but she did nothing when Dorothy and the three guys were kidnapped and brought to the witch's castle?"

"Because she wanted them to kill the witch so she didn't have to do it herself. And after both witches were dead and the wizard had flown away in the hot air balloon, she was the sole ruler in the land of Oz. She got Dorothy to do all of the dirty work for her." Similar to Maria.

"No. I refuse to believe that," Bella shook her head, chuckling. "That's an interesting theory, but I'm sure the screenwriters weren't actually thinking that when they wrote the movie."

"Probably not. But realistically, no one is ever completely good or evil. Everyone has their own selfish goals and motivations." Including me and all of the Cullens. The difference was they tried to hide their dark desires behind a facade of helping humanity. They were just as bad as a nomadic human drinker.

"If Glinda is evil, then my whole childhood is a lie," Bella laughed.

"It really warps the concept of what people are led to believe is good and what is bad. We just naturally assume that because she's beautiful and glamorous and fair that she must be good. And because the bad witch is ugly and painted green, we assume she's evil. But if you really think about it, she has every right to be angry at Dorothy because Dorthy killed her sister and stole her slippers."

"Wow," Bella yawned. "Thank you for your very deep and intellectual thoughts. I'm too tired to comprehend any of this."

"It's alright. I'm getting tired too. I should probably go to bed soon," I lied. I almost didn't want our conversation to end, but I knew it had to at some point.

"Yeah, well goodnight." Bella stood up to begin trudging her way towards the stairs. She probably didn't need my help this time though I followed behind her just in case.

"Goodnight."


Later that night, Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett gathered back in the kitchen while Carlisle and Esme were still out searching.

"Status?" I asked at a low volume.

"There's still nothing. We still couldn't sniff out their scents at all. I think they left," Rosalie said.

"We ran around the whole perimeter and into the mountains. Couldn't find a single trace," Emmett explained.

Suddenly, I heard a door open upstairs and a squeaking noise coming from the stairs. Our talking ceased.

Somehow Bella managed to make her way down the stairs all by herself. She appeared in the kitchen looking disheveled and seemingly struggling to walk forward.

"Hey, Bella. I thought you were going to bed." Emmett hurried over to Bella's side to help her maneuver her way through the kitchen.

"Couldn't sleep. I just came down to get water." Bella walked over to the cabinet and reached up to retrieve a glass. I could see she was visibly struggling. Before I could grab the glass for her, she took hold of one and dropped it on the ground, glass shattering everywhere.

Bella stumbled backward and held up her hand with blood pouring out of a cut on her thumb.

"Oh shit. Do you guys have a bandaid somewhere?"

It all happened so fast. Edward stared intently at her hand oozing blood, and he took in a breath that would seal his fate. He lunged towards her.

"Edward, no!" I shouted. I ran towards him without thinking, throwing him up in the air and directly smashing through the kitchen table.