About A Soldier

Part 9/10

Insanity

Jasper's decision to leave Maria, Peter thinks, is one of the best ones he's ever made. He noticed a change in his friend almost immediately, though he still confessed to missing certain things about their maker.

Three years into their life together, though – him, and Jasper and Charlotte – Jasper began to change again. He's reclusive now, and spends most of his time with his knees at his chest, his arms around his legs and his face hidden from view.

Tonight – a cold Saturday near the end of September – they're in Michigan, and Charlotte is waiting when Peter returns from a hunt.

"I think you should talk to him, Pete."

He frowns. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know. I just know he's… he's gone mad or something, Pete. I think maybe we shouldn't have taken him from Maria."

"Don't say that. You know better… living off her wasn't healthy for him."

Charlotte grabs his hand and marches him to the back of the abandoned shack they've found, pushes open the door to a small room and points with a long, slender arm. "And is this healthy?"

Jasper is sitting in a darkened corner of the room, his eyes watching the patch of sun on the ground near his foot, as though he were afraid it might attack him at any moment. His face was blank, his eyes so dark that they were barely visible in the darkness, even to his two fellow vampires.

"He needs to hunt, Peter. He hasn't been out in weeks."

Peter makes his way over. "Jasper? Get up, kid. You gotta hunt before you wither away."

With a grunt, Peter lifts him off the ground. "No," he says. "I can't."

"You can't what? Hunt?"

"It hurts."

Peter sighs. "You've gotta get past this, Jasper. I understand it's hard for you… can't you tune it out or something?"

"It hurts."

Charlotte shook her head and grasped Jasper's other arm, helping Peter lead him to the door. "Get out there, Jasper. You can't live like this, and neither can we. You've got to pull your weight. We're due to move to another town in the next few days and if you can't walk, you can't go."

"Charlotte," Peter warns. "There's no sense in threatening him."

"Who says I'm threatening? Now, go."

They give him a gentle push out the door, and he tumbles ungracefully through the woods away from the house.

The streets of the nearby town were empty, and Jasper didn't feel like legging it to the next one. He lowers himself down onto a small bench near the side of the main street, he covers his head with his coat and closes his eyes.

If only he could sleep for a little while.

"Excuse me, sir. You can't stay there."

A low, irritated rumble rises in his chest. "I'm not staying, just resting."

"Well you can't rest here, either."

Jasper lowers his coat and pulls himself to a sitting position, rolling his eyes up to glare at the officer. "I'm just tired, officer."

"Find a bed to sleep in, then. Or a box. It doesn't matter to me, but you can't sleep there."

Standing abruptly, Jasper pushes by the officer and mumbles something his mother would've slapped him for.

"What was that?"

"You heard me."

"You get back here this instant."

Jasper closes his eyes and practices the slow breathing he used to do as a human when he was angry. It wasn't working. "Why don't you get off your high horse and stop pushing people around?"

"It's my business," the officer says, "if people are littering the sidewalk. You're doing that, and I—"

Jasper's turned around and inches from the officer's face before the man can finish his sentence. "And you what?"

"Now, let's not cause a scene," the officer says. For every step backwards he takes, Jasper takes one forwards. "I'm not being discriminatory or anything, only enforcing the law."

His lip curling back over his teeth, Jasper glares down at the man, making no effort to quieten the irritated growl in the back of his throat. They're in the middle of the street now, and the man is reaching for his pistol.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

The officer, thinking he's being quick, reaches for the weapon with the opposite hand that Jasper's been watching.

In the time in took the man to make the decision, the gun is rattling to the ground, and the officer's back is pressed into the cold, wet bricks of the side of a building.

"What the hell are you?!"

Jasper thinks that that is a very good question. One he no longer has an answer for.

The emotions that race through him are like none he's felt in a long time – years.

Since his war days with Maria.

He latches onto the man's neck and, even after he knows he's had his fill, even after he feels the bones of his shoulders cracking beneath his grip, he doesn't let go.

There's practically nothing left of the man when he does, and the sight before him when he comes to his sense is enough to send him scrambling backwards. Had he done this; had he multilated this person to such an extent?

Jasper looks at the name tag on the officer's uniform.

"I'm sorry, Toby," he says, reaching down with a trembling hand to close the man's wide, blue eyes.

His eyes had been blue, he thinks. A long time ago, before he was a monster.