DISCLAIMER: I do not own nor claim any rights to Twilight & it's characters.

Chapter 2: The End of the Beginning

Jasper:

I couldn't believe it when sitting in my first period French class I felt the wash of absolute gut-wrenching fear coming from the hallway. In fluent French I asked to be excused, and ran (by human standards) into the hallway in time to see Edward fleeing the building with a nearly-unconscious human girl on his back.

Edward.

All of this time, all of these visions, everyone breathing down my neck making sure I didn't step a toe out of line…

And it's Edward who snaps.

I had no time to feel vindicated, however. I had to stop Edward from killing the girl. If there is anything Carlisle had managed to drill into my thick skull, it was the value of human life.

I took off after him, horrified by the way the girl was smacking dully against Edward's back. As he cleared the parking lot and broke into the forest, I silently cursed his speed which was putting more and more distance between me and the girl who I needed to rescue.

As I entered the forest, I stopped for a moment to determine Edward's direction. I breathed deeply and froze, my muscles contracting with effort. I found Edward's scent heading North, and with it was the luscious smell of fresh spilled human blood. My eyes darkened with need and I took off running to get to the human before Edward finished her, my purpose completely changed.

I wanted her for myself.

My legs blurred beneath me and I broke into the meadow without losing speed. I was heading right for the pale, broken human on the ground when I heard her whimpered plea to Edward.

"No."

At the last minute, I altered my course and slammed into Edward, pushing him across the field and into a tree trunk. I curled one hand around his throat and held him in place, still struggling to get my bloodlust under control.

It was made more difficult by Edward's own raging thirst. My need was compounded with his and the combination was leaving me breathless. My teeth ground against each other as I struggled to hold my own. Then Edward made a mistake.

"Do it." He said, "Don't fight the inevitable."

And suddenly I was hit by all of Edward's emotions. He felt resignation, grim satisfaction, anger, passion, want, need…

But he didn't feel shame.

Edward had no regret for the girl whose heart was straining for each beat, pushing against her looming fate.

I may have killed often and indiscriminately in my past, but I mourned every death. I could see every set of eyes as they glazed and life left them.

I hated myself for what I had done.

And Edward felt smug.

At once, my struggle ceased. I bared my teeth, shoved Edward back and snarled my response.

"No."

The human whimpered and shifted and the smell of her blood hit me fresh again. Edward renewed his struggle, and I fought to keep him pinned.

Then the scent of the human grew stale. It soured in the air. I dropped my hand and Edward remained against the tree though he was captive no longer. We both knew what was coming.

"If you respect him at all, you will go get Carlisle." I said.

Edward hesitated, and I blasted my anger at him.

"Now." I hissed between clenched teeth.

He looked at the girl and dashed toward the hospital.

I knew there were only seconds before it would begin in earnest. I walked over to the girl. Her ruined blood, corrupted by venom, no longer called to my demon as I crouched beside her.

"I am so sorry." I said as I brushed her tangled and blood soaked hair from her smooth, pale forehead.

Her lips parted and I noticed a line of dark, raised track marks where her teeth had broken the skin. Her voice cracked and whistled as her breath ghosted over her raw throat.

"I'm glad it's you." She said, "I wasn't sure, and I'm glad."

My unbeating heart broke for this poor girl, incoherent with pain. I laid my cold hand on an undamaged spot on her forehead, trying to cool the imminent fever.

"I wasn't sure, but now it's you. Now I know. "

Her tongue moistened her cracked lips. Her eyes slowly rose and then locked with mine. I was captivated by the depths of them, how ancient they were in so young a face. She gazed back and I couldn't look away. I brushed a piece of grass from her cheek, and my thumb grazed the corner of her bruised and swollen lip. Her lip moved against my finger as she said,

"Now I know I get to go to heaven."

She trembled in pain for a few moments more, moaning and hitching her breath before her motions ceased and she lay quiet and still on the forest floor, her eyes locked on mine.

Then they unfocused, her back arched violently and she let out a piercing, heart-wrenching scream.

Bella:

He was biting me.

He was biting me, hard, and sucking out my blood.

I tried to plead with him, but I couldn't think, couldn't speak.

It seemed like days since I tripped and he caught me.

It seemed like hours since his sharp teeth had sliced through my skin like scissors through paper. Like that's what they were made for.

My energy waned. I was going to die. Here and now. I worried about Charlie. Renee had built another life, but I was all Charlie had.

There was a final burst of pain as his teeth twisted in my neck, destroying the vessels and rending the surrounding tissue. I heard a clap like a sonic boom, and I knew I had to be dead.

The awful pulling crawl of feeling my blood race too quickly in the wrong direction has ceased, but there was still pain. Throbbing pain in my head, in my hand. Unimaginable pain in my neck.

I struggled to focus my eyes, and saw my tormentor pinned against a tree on the other side of the clearing by a man.

No, I corrected myself.

By an angel.

His blond hair was whipping in the wind, and the sunlight lit it like an aura of gold. His pale skin glowed and sparkled, reflected the light like a million mirrors showered in pixie dust.

I was so relieved. I had been a decent person, but was that enough? I could have given more, been more patient, less judgmental. There were so many things that they could hold against me. I was so overwhelmingly grateful that I had passed the test, and my life came out on the positive side of the balance sheet.

"I am so sorry." My angel spoke to me, his voice music without a beat, and the feeling of his cool hands on my face proved God's existence if nothing else did. I had to tell him.

"I'm glad it's you. I wasn't sure, and I'm glad." Even my voice sounded broken, as if my attacker had sucked it from me along with my blood.

"I wasn't sure, but now it's you. Now I know."

I had to see his face; I had to see his eyes. I struggled to look up, but when I met his gaze it was all worth it. His eyes were endlessly dark, the color of cold honey in a pail, raw and sweet. His hand rested on my face, his thumb brushing against my lips. I wanted to melt into him, and leave the pain, the growing, overwhelming pain. I could feel it rising in me, burning me away from within and leaving an empty shell in its wake. I had to tell the angel before the fire burned me away completely.

"Now I know I get to go to heaven."

There. Now I could let the pain come. Through the rising tide of panic, I kept my eyes locked on my angel's. But as the heat built higher and higher, my vision began to blur.

No.

Let me keep my angel.

Please.

I don't need anything else.

Don't take him.

My vision burned brightly for a moment, and I stopped moving as I struggled to lock the vision of my angel away, to memorize the details of his face before the blackness that edged my sight overwhelmed it.

Then the darkness came, and with it the most overwhelming and excruciating pain I had ever felt. This couldn't be heaven. Heaven could never hurt this much. Where was my angel now?

My body arched, beyond my control, my mouth opened and I screamed.