When You Love Someone

Chapter 12

Jasper

We know the second the wolves catch our scent. One by one, they let out howls of alarm that reverberate in the air and get caught in the wind, making the cry sound hollow and haunting.

For a second, I feel a surge of excitement to rip flesh and taste blood. For a second, I feel like my old self, the self I was before Alice found me and changed my life, so I shake my head to clear it. I stuff the feelings down the way I've been learning to do for decades now, and Alice smiles at me, knowing my struggle and proud of how far I've come.

Her praise isn't enough for me, though. No one knows, but I will never be proud of myself until I can be in the same room as Bella Swan again without wanting to hurt her. My lapse all those years ago has torn my self-esteem to shreds, and I'd leap at the chance to fix that. So, because I have my own reasons, my place here with my family on the edge of the Quileute reservation isn't entirely selfless, but it's where I need to be.

We tighten our ranks as the wolves come into view, appearing like magic out of the heavy fog across the gorge separating us. Surprisingly, none of them are actually in their wolf forms, but, then again, why would they be? We promised to never go on their land. They're protected.

"You dare come here?" the leader, Sam I think his name is, asks us incredulously, as if we must be stupid, but I can sense his emotions. I know he's drained emotionally and physically. He and his pack are sleepless and scared. No, terrified. I send the message to Edward and he meets my eyes, understanding immediately.

"What do you want?" Sam demands, and Carlisle answers.

"We've met Jacob Black in Maine."

"Jacob?" Jacob's sister can't help but say his name. Sam glares at her, though, and she quiets down, remembers her place in the pack.

"So what?" Sam asks. "We don't care who you saw."

"I could make you care," Emmett growls, as ready for fun as I am, but Carlisle is quick to restrain him.

"It's alright, Emmett. Jacob tells us Bella Swan is among you. May we speak to her?"

Collectively, their fear rises, flares so much I'm almost surprised I'm the only one who can see it.

"Bella Swan is dead. You're too late to speak to her."

"Have you..." Edward begins but has to work to finish it.. "Have you killed her?"

"You killed her," Sam corrects in disgust. "You and your poison. You ruined that girl."

"Jacob says she's back," Carlisle brings the conversation back to its focus, "back from the dead. He says she's been terrorizing your pack."

"He's lying."

"Then why are you all so obviously worn down with fatigue? You forget, I am a physician. I see the signs clearly. You haven't slept in days. Why else if not because Bella Swan is haunting you, come back to torment you?"

"Mind your own business! You have no right to come here asking questions! Whoever my pack and I are dealing with is our business, and, rest assured, Bloodsucker, we will make it our business to destroy this enemy."

"Don't touch her!" Edward can't help but scream, himself afraid now; afraid to hope Bella may really be alive...or living dead, rather...and afraid to lose her to the wolves if she is. I send him waves of reassurance, but he shakes them away. He wants to feel it all. "I swear, if Bella is back and you hurt her, I will end you. All of you!"

"You forget, Bloodsucker, our enemy is on our land, land you are forbidden to enter. You break our treaty, and it will be us who ends you."

"Not before I end you first!" Emmett promises with a growl.

Sam and his pack growl back.

"Please," Carlisle tries appealing to the dog's reason, "whatever Bella Swan has become now, whatever she has done, she still deserves fairness. In the name of the love you used to have for her, please, spare her. Give her to us."

"Whoever we're dealing with isn't Bella Swan."

"How do you know?"

"Well, for starters, Bella Swan is dead! Weren't you listening? No one comes back from the dead. Well, no human, anyway. Second, this woman...this creature we're dealing with is not human, not even slightly. She's fast, really fast, and indestructible."

"She's a vampire?"

"No, she smells nothing like you. She smells like death, pure death. She looks like it, too; white as snow and her body seems made of ice it's so hard and cold."

"Like a vampire."

"She's not a vampire!" Sam bellows, clearly agitated since he himself is just as confused as us. "She's nothing like you. You we can kill. Easily. But this woman? Nothing we do hurts her...like a dead person. She's burned our homes, stabbed us. She seems bent on destroying us but we don't know why. When we ask, she doesn't respond, acts like she can't hear us or understand us. This isn't Bella Swan. Bella Swan would never do anything like this anyway. This woman is some dark creature, and we are going to find a way to kill her. We have no choice."

"Alright," Carlisle cedes. "Please just answer me two final questions and then I will go."

"Make it quick."

"Is it true that Bella Swan's grave is empty?"

All of the wolves tense at that, the thing they fear most and dare not speak out in the open like this.

"Is it true?" Carlisle repeats. "Is the grave you dug for Bella Swan empty?"

"Yes," Sam ground out. "It's empty."

"So, then, will you agree with me that, whether or not the woman you fight now is Bella Swan or not, without any other explanation, it is only reasonable to conclude that Bella Swan is not dead? Will you agree with me?"

"No," Sam kept his stubborn stance. "No, I will not agree! Stop spreading your poisonous lies! You're ruining that girl's innocent name!"

"We will leave you now," Carlisle announces, giving us the signal to retreat. "And Sam? Despite what you think of me, I hope for your sake and the sake of your pack that you are not wrong."

"Is that a threat?"

"Believe it or not, it's a prayer," and the look on Carlisle's face is one of pure piety, the look he might have worn in his first lifetime as a holy man of faith. "If Bella Swan truly is alive, and the last thing she knew in this life was what Jacob Black, a member of your pack, did to her only daughter, then I fear for you. I fear for you all."

"You really think Bella would hurt those people?" Esme asks Carlisle as we walked away, and then remembered to add, "If she's alive, that is?"

"Of course I don't think that!" Carlisle responds and looks as if he might laugh. Actually, I feel a bubble of humor welling inside of him. It made us all stop in the middle of the forest to study him and his smug grin. "Bella wouldn't hurt a fly in this life or the next, and we all know that! I only said what I said to give the wolves something to think about. They're already afraid. Now, driven mad by fear, they will reexamine if it's such a horrible idea to help us after all."

"Carlisle, you sly devil you!" Emmett guffaws, clapping our father on his back. "Who would've thought you could sink so low? I'm so proud!"

"But Carlisle, what do you really think?" Edward asks, and we all shut up. His pained expression reminds us that for him this is a lot more than a game of wills; this is a journey to decide the rest of his eternity and whether his children will ever have a mother again. The shame everyone feels at having forgotten funnels into me in a rush. "Carlisle, do you really think Bella is alive or not?"

"We will visit the grave site tonight under cover of deepest darkness. The wolves say the grave is empty, but there might be some clues as to why that may only be detected by our finer senses."

Everyone agrees but Alice. She doesn't mention it, though. She merely takes my hand in hers, squeezing too hard while she tries desperately to think things through.

"Alice?"

"This isn't a good idea," she says to me in a whisper no one will overhear.

"What do you mean? Did you have a vision?"

"I've had pieces of visions, nothing solid. It's like...it's like someone is blocking me from my own gift."

"No one can do that, Alice. Well, maybe Aro can, but he is nowhere near us. You're just getting carried away. I understand. This whole business is really...heavy."

"This whole business is wrong! Bella wouldn't want to spend the last seconds of her life with Jacob; she would've wanted to spend them with her kids. So why did she go to Jacob? It's wrong. It doesn't fit. And, she died as a human; why then did the wolves hide her death from her parents, especially if she was already so sick? They wouldn't have needed to lie about why she died, but they did. It's wrong, Jasper! It's all wrong. None of the pieces fit. Don't you see?"

I do see now that she's pointed it out, but the implications scare me. I'm afraid of where this road leads and afraid of what Edward would do if he could see what Alice sees.

"Jasper, you have to believe me. Whatever has happened to Bella, whether she's alive or dead, it isn't good and it isn't right. When you go visit her grave tonight promise me you will be careful."

"I promise."

I don't have Alice's gift to see the future, but I know right here and right now that we're in trouble. We're all in big, inescapable trouble."