Chapter Fifty Seven

Jasper

The further we got from the Cullens the more uneasy I became, Bella was close by and from the creepy feeling I got she was up to something. Had she attacked Carlisle or his coven? I picked up my phone to see a text from Garrett and cursed ringing them while Peter turned the car around.

"Jasper?"

"Bella's close by"

"I know, I saw her earlier."

"Where? She's already here in Boston? I take it she didn't try ripping your head off, now why was that I wonder?"

"I think she wanted to make a point, that I'm not safe anywhere, even at the hospital. It was just to show she means business."

"So where is she now?"

"I have no idea, watching us I suspect. She threw me out of a sixth floor window and by the time I talked my way out of that and got back to my office she was gone. I called the family together and we're staying here until we come up with a way of drawing her in."

"Then what?"

"Then we try to explain why we did what we did and hope we can get through to her. If not then I'm afraid we might have to call in the Volturi."

"You call the Volturi and you and everyone you love will be dead before they arrive, trust me"

"Is that a threat Jasper?"

"No Carlisle, that's a warning so take it seriously. We're on our way, I'll find her and get her somewhere she can't hurt anyone until we figure out a way to calm her down."

"Then may I suggest you hurry before she decides to burn the house down with us in it or something equally drastic"

"Oh I think she's already preoccupied Carlisle"

I cut him off before he could ask me to explain, if they hadn't noticed Garrett was gone that was their problem.

The nebulous feeling I'd had suddenly became stronger as if she had been hidden from me and suddenly she was out in the open.

"Pull over Peter. She's close by"

He did as I said and I got out leaving the door wide open in my haste and allowing the pull to draw me on. It started to fade again and I cursed but then I heard a terrible cry of agony from up ahead and burst through the trees into a clearing to find Garrett kneeling on the ground, his body distorted and crushed by something I couldn't see. This must be the power Bella possessed and when she had used it on him I was able to feel her because it was no longer cloaking her. Leaving Charlotte to do what she could for Garrett I started running, after the slowly fading pull of my mate.

"Bella. Bella, its me. Don't you want revenge on me for abandoning you? I'm here, come and get me"

I stopped running and waited, would she take me up on my offer or would I lose her again?

Peter stopped about a hundred yards from me and I motioned for him to go back,

"Help Charlotte with Garrett, I'll be fine. Bella wont come back if she thinks its a trap."

He nodded unhappily and turned sprinting back the way we had come.

"You are either very brave or extremely stupid Jasper"

She stood watching me from a distance, not the Bella I remembered from that first time in the forest, when she had been bleeding and close to death, this Bella looked more like the Angel of Death herself.

"How did you find me?"

"The pull, I felt you while you were busy using your gift on Garrett. Do you feel any better for torturing him or killing Sam Uley and the others?"

She shook her head,

"Not really but they deserved what they got. They ruined my life, used me as a pawn in some sick game. Now I'm a vampire and all I can think of is killing those who hurt me, The Quileutes, the Cullens, my father, and you. So you see there's plenty of time for me to feel better."

"You won't. It doesn't matter how many you kill or maim, you will never be free of the anger and despair, It will eat you alive unless you find a way to shut it out."

"Why would I want to do that? Its the only thing giving this life purpose."

"Then find something else, something better to hold on to".

"You sound like an expert on hopelessness."

"I am, I spent decades killing and torturing to try and drown my pain but nothing worked until..."

"Until what? You found your humanity?"

"No, I found I had someone who cared about me. Someone willing to fight for me. Someone who wouldn't leave me alone to drown in my pain".

"Well weren't you the lucky one. Who is she?"

"It wasn't a she, it was my friend Peter. Ironically one of those I turned in the early days, one who had the most reason to hate me, to wish me pain and despair."

"So you have a friend as crazy as you, congratulations. I happen to like my pain, it's all that keeps me going."

"Is that why you didn't kill Carlisle? Why you tortured Garrett without killing him? Because you are frightened of what will happen when we're all dead and your life has no more purpose?"

Bella

He was far too perceptive, he could see into my soul, the black rotting thing that inhabited my body since I became a vampire. Yes I had let them live so I could return again and again to torture them but it was all I had. He'd been lucky, he had a friend who cared, someone who truly loved him while I had only liars and deceivers for friends. I envied him for a moment but what would I do if hate disappeared? My life would be meaningless and empty and I couldn't allow that. Hatred fed my vampire senses, it was enough to stop the black emptiness that was all I could see beyond it.

"I have purpose, you've seen it with the Quileutes and with Garrett, are you ready for your own punishment? Your own death? You left me to Garrett, to someone else to look after and now you will reap what you have sown"

"Very well but let me tell you one thing before you kill me Bella..."

"Stop calling me Bella, she's dead, she was a human girl with her whole life before her and between you, the wolves and you it was all taken away from me. Bella Swan is dead may she rest in peace one day."

"Very well, let me tell you that you think you see a gaping chasm in your future when all revenge is spent but its nothing to the darkness waiting unseen. With every life you take, with every murder you commit the darkness grows until one day you'll find there is no light left, just the gaping chasm and you will fall in but you'll never reach the bottom because the chasm just keep growing and growing. Do you want to fall into that? Feel nothing but pain and despair for eternity? I know it's there because I saw it, I was teetering on the edge when Peter stretched out his hand and pulled me back."

"Then you were fortunate, I have no one, no hand will stretch out to offer me hope, it's too late."

"It's never too late Bella until you start to fall and you aren't there yet."

"Stop speaking to me as if you know me. You don't know me at all. You didn't know the girl you bit and abandoned and you certainly don't know the monster I've become."

"Then let me know you please, let me make things right or at least try to."

I shook my head.

"It's too late Jasper, a thousand years too late."

I stretched out my hand to him and the ribbon of shield snaked out with it.