Disclaimer: Of course, I own nothing but my own words. The characters belong to Ms. Meyer and a very small number of the words do, too.
1949
Chapter 7
Bella tossed and turned in the bed the porter had pulled out while she and Major Whitlock were at dinner. She had slept well the last two nights, better than she had for years, but now she could not seem to fall asleep.
She did not know why. Was it because she had felt safe with a new vampire to protect her? While this was certainly possible, it did not seem all that likely since he seemed all too willing to kill her in the future even though he had no immediate plans to do so. She remembered the first few weeks on the run from Victoria, constantly traveling, unable to sleep at all unless from sheer exhaustion. She had slept for a whole day and a half on an old farm in Northern California once she had finally fallen asleep. An older couple, maybe 20 years older than Charlie, owned the farm. Both of their sons had died in the war and they had been trying to convince their daughter and her husband to move back from Chicago to take over the farm. The woman had washed Bella's clothes while she slept and fed her well. They knew something was bad had happened to Bella. She was still talking in her sleep back then. They had told her she could stay even though she knew little of farming. She had told them that she would be found if she stayed and had thanked them. She called the couple three months later from a rooming house telephone just to hear their voices and make sure that they were still alive. She had not been so good at hiding back then and she had been worried ever since that the couple would have been the first victims of Victoria that Bella had left in her wake.
It would be restful if Jasper killed her. She would no longer have to try so hard—or at all. She would go to heaven and see Charlie (if Edward was right about God) and she would be forgiven all of the petty thefts and abandoned relationships in her past. She would even be forgiven for being a thoughtless child who could not see beyond herself to the danger she had brought on her father. What a fool she had been! All those days with Alice and Edward in and out of her home and even nights when Edward would stay in her room she had put not only herself but Charlie at risk. How could she have ignored such an obvious risk? Had she really been so selfish?
Was there anything she would miss if Jasper killed her? She tried to think of something. There were many things she might have regretted before, but it was hard to care about them anymore. Even remembering was a little difficult, as if they had all happened to someone else. At one time she would have regretted never experiencing sex, but the idea was faintly repulsive to her now. She would never get enough to a man to love him and she thought sex with a stranger would make her feel even more estranged from the rest of humanity than she did already. She no longer enjoyed reading much; she now read only nonfiction, newspapers and detective novels. She preferred puzzles to reading when she had spare time, especially mathematical ones. She liked reading about biology and animals and had raised eyebrows at the local library in a small town she had stayed in for almost a year.
Had she been sleeping well because the choice of surviving was no longer in her own hands? Jasper now made that decision, Jasper and the rest of his coven, as he explained it to her. Bella had no choice. Jasper would keep her alive, she thought, even if she decided to die, at least, until he had got what he wanted out of her. She rather admired how he had taken on the responsibility for finding and killing Victoria (and Laurent, too? She wasn't as sure about him). She wondered if her planned to use her as bait somehow. She did not think she would mind if he did, even if that was how he planned for her to die, so long as it was quick. Would she do the same in his place? No, but she was not a survivor like Jasper. Bella laughed scornfully at herself as she thought that. No, she let other people fight her battles. Perhaps the Cullens saw that in her and that was partly why they would not take the responsibility themselves.
Perhaps it was just the train keeping her awake rather than the absence of her protector. She had not truly understood until he had spelled it out for her that he was struggling with his thirst. She had blithely pulled him through a department store and a market, both teeming with people, and then insisted that they take a train, also filled with people, and which he was stuck on for a day and a half. She tried to think back to how she had behaved with Edward and Alice. Had she been so callous with them? She thought not, because she could not think of any demand she had ever made of their time. The only demand she had made of Edward was in the hospital after James attacked her when she had insisted he stay with her. Would it have been better if he had left her then? Could it have kept Charlie alive.
Bella decided to sit up. Trying to sleep was not working.
Could she ask Major Whitlock flat out if she talked in her sleep? He already seemed to think she was a little crazy.
Bella turned on the little light and pulled out the novel she had bought at the train station, Why Shoot a Butler? Perhaps trying to read would help put her to sleep.