Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns it all.

Rated M for several reasons.

Chpt 26 Caught

APOV

I know where he will go. To his stupid little fishing village in Nicaragua. At some point he will go there to wait and 're-charge his batteries' as he puts it. He has had a base there for centuries. More like a hovel in my opinion but he's always been very attached to it. The locals fear and respect him, they protect him.

And I will be there waiting for him when arrives. It will be my best and probably only chance to take my revenge, I'm terrified but determined.

There is Edward to consider too. Because of the 'pull' I felt for Rutilio, which I believed to be a mating bond, I stood by and did nothing while he brutalised my beloved brother and sold him in to slavery. I might not have actually known what was happening but that was only because I did nothing to find out. I sold my brother out for a chance at a happy future and because I'm weak and fearful.

I always knew I wasn't a fighter and that I wasn't mentally strong like the rest of my family, like Jazz. I coveted his strength and tried to use it as my own at the same time as I tried to mould him into my idea of a perfect man. It's only now I realise how different the man I made my husband is to the real Jasper.

Once I met him his obvious strength was one of the things that held my attraction. I have always been weak and afraid, craved strong protection. I wish I could be different but I can't. I don't pity myself but my life wasn't exactly easy, my death even less so. With my years as a vampire in education I have come to accept why I am like I am and why I seek to be with people and family who are stronger than me. And I do give back. I do. I want the people I love to be happy and I've always tried to make that happen with my gift. I did my best for Jazz in that regard too. He was so unhappy when we met, so broken. I kidded myself that I was healing him and making him happy.

It isn't until now that I realised I didn't and I wasn't. I know I helped, I gave him peace and an alternative way to live when he needed it most. I gave him something he had never really known, contentment. But I didn't make him happy. I thought changing him and moulding him was going to do the job, get him to the place he needed to be. But I was wrong. Because I never really knew him. Not entirely my fault, he told me of his past of course but now I know it was a very heavily edited version.

I always knew he had darkness in him, had suspected that he'd done terrible, evil things, known that he was struggling to leave his bloodlust and everything else he had been behind. But I had never once thought about whether or not those things were part of him, that they shaped who he was, I thought only about taking them away.

And I failed.

And in my grief over losing the future I had seen with Bella and Edward in our family I decided he was too much trouble, a lost cause, not capable of being what I needed him to be. And of course he wasn't, he was always someone completely different.

I am jealous of Bella. No longer simply for being Jasper's mate and the one he loves, but because she does see all of him, knows and understands him, loves him in spite of it. I am jealous that she is a better, stronger woman than me.

He frightens me. The real him.

I do still love him. Or rather the idea of him. But if I'm honest the reality scares me. There is a single minded determination in him that brooks no argument, takes no prisoners and suffers no weakness. Back in Wisconsin, I thought he was going to kill Charlotte, his sister, for keeping Bella from him. It was terrifying to discover a man I called husband and shared my bed with could be so, so, violent and so cold with someone he's always told me he loved.

He didn't kill her and I'm not sure I'll ever really understand what happened that night. Just like I will never understand him.

I physically ache for what used to be between us. I will regret pushing him away for eternity. But I'm too afraid of him to want him back. This, Major, or whatever he truly is, is not meant for me nor I for him.

When all this is over. When Rutilio is dead. Then perhaps my gift will return to its full power and I will be able to see what my future holds. I have missed my ability to see what is coming, what is happening around me but not as much as I thought I would. It's partial loss, oh yes I still know where to invest my money or whether to take an umbrella with me, has freed me in a way. Given me some breathing space to think about me, things, properly without the constant distraction of working out how to influence the future or protect the people I love from it. Of course initially I dealt with its loss by ignoring it, throwing myself into what I thought was my new, happy, life. Shopping.

And I always thought Rose was shallow.

My family. I miss Edward, he was my brother, we bonded the moment I stole his bedroom. I love shallow but fierce Rosalie and brave joyous Emmett. I love Esme, she is my mother and the simple way she accepted me back into her arms still brings venom to my eyes. I love Carlisle. But I do not trust him. His compassion and love for his family has always comforted me, given me the strength I lack on my own. Yet I have always suspected that Edward was his abiding passion, the motivation for everything he did, even over and above his mate. I always pushed those thoughts aside, especially around my brother, never ever wanting to believe that my father was anything less than perfect. But I always knew.

Hence I am suspicious of the warmth of his welcome for me now. Suddenly I hold the status Edward once did. And I don't like it. I already resent the weight of it. And I fear his desire to bind me to the Whitlocks the way he desired to bind Edward to Bella.

Unlike Carlisle I hold my current husband fully responsible for Edward's death and he will pay for that as much as for what he did to me.

I can't foresee how this will go but I don't care, Rutilio is far stronger than me and will quite probably kill me but I will not take what he's done to me lying down. He raped me. He raped my life. Just because I didn't recognise it as such at the time does not mean I can't recognise it now. I can't move on until he's paid for it. I know others are more capable of dishing out this justice but for once I feel compelled to stand up for myself. Me.

He told me he always approaches the village the same way. So he has the best view, can appreciate any changes and drink in the sight of what is his. Sentimental clap trap, this place is a shithole but at least I know how to get in position without him discovering my scent.

He is a bit of an enigma to me now. Thinking around my hatred I recognise that he is basically driven by a cartoonish desire to rule the world but he's so much more complex than that. He feels things deeply. Like his love for this shitty little town, his feelings about his first mate or his appreciation of the sacrifice Jasper apparently made when we thought he had killed himself. A tiny part of me wants to understand him better. But the rest of me wants him dead. He's evil. The pain he's inflicted, the atrocities he's committed, the way he will use anyone and anything without a second thought. Just so he can wear a little crown and be King of all he surveys. Really he ought to be studied in a laboratory for all eternity like the rat he is.

He's nothing. He's a user. He saw an opportunity in Stefan and used it. He saw an opportunity in me and he used it. He saw an opportunity in Edward and he used it. He saw an opportunity in Chelsea, his mate, and he used it. Very little of what he's done has been his own, every plot and manipulation he's made has been based on the ability of someone else and woven inside their plans. He's a parasite.

I hate him.

It may be a while before he comes here, but he will. And when he does I am terrified that he will kill me. But this is the one chance I have to catch him by surprise and I will take it. He feels safe here. I want to be the one to prove that's not true. I want him to know he underestimated me.

Right now I need something to think about to take my mind off my crushing fear. Clothes. I can always think about clothes. Clothes maketh the vampire.

RPOV

I hurry along the deserted street and a whisper of wind blows across my face as I cross at the junction.

With a shudder I quicken my pace, in the warmth of the familiar bar I can lay my demons to rest for a little while.

The last few months have preyed heavily on me and for the first time in a while I am beginning to feel the weight of the years pressing down on me. A great weight.

All is not lost. Experience carries many benefits and if you learn from your mistakes, as I have always tried to do, then there is always a chance you can wriggle free of your predicament.

Yes. All is not lost.

Just as I begin to relax strong arms grip me from behind.

"Oh dear." A soft feminine voice growls seductively. "I seem to have found you first. How terrible for you."

Even before the arms have fully embraced me or the voice has finished speaking razor sharp teeth cut into my flesh, tearing my head from my neck.

The pain is indescribable. Decapitation is something I have thus far managed to avoid in my exceedingly long life.

There is additional pain as my cheek strikes the rough stone of the curb and my head bounces, the world around me spinning crazily, as I skip across the cobblestones before coming to rest with my face pressed against the doorstep of an abandoned building.

My eyes gape in shock as my attacker drags my body past me and into the depths building.

Small hands grasp my hair and heft me up, swinging me like a ladies purse. My vision swims and my mind reels.

What the fuck just happened?