OK folks, no more keeping you guessing, well not about everything! Jules x
Chapter Sixteen
Jasper
I couldn't believe how easily I'd been duped but then I'd been tricked by one of the people I thought I could trust, it never occurred to me to worry about putting myself in those hands. After the turmoil and anger following Bella's party I needed peace and that's exactly what I was offered. A short time of complete peace and I would be helping with research into vampires mental make up. All my senses would be allowed a rest, no emotions except my own. That would be a first, a chance to explore my own emotions not colored by others input. I closed my eyes and retreated into my head. It was a very peaceful place and I thought back to Bella's party and what had occurred. No one but me saw that Edward was about to shove Bella hard into the table full of glass but when I tried to explain my actions the others didn't believe me. Alice's reaction hurt the most. I knew she was good friends with Bella but I thought she would at least listen to my side of the story. Instead when she came out of Carlisle's study with Esme and Rosalie she was furious. Obviously Carlisle hadn't helped my cause so I followed her up to our bedroom and shut the door turning to speak. I ducked as a photograph frame whizzed past my ear, it was followed by ornaments, pictures, everything she could get her hands on. She wouldn't listen to me, just kept screaming abuse, her emotions crashing against my mind like shards of glass slashing me to pieces.
Accepting she wasn't going to listen to me I grabbed a rucksack and put a few things in it ducking more missiles as I did so then left the room, running downstairs into the emotions of the others, shock, revulsion, anger. I fled into the darkness away from them, crashing to my knees among the trees unable to believe they had turned on me so utterly then I heard the footsteps running after me. Turning I looked at the figure standing in the moonlight its hand outstretched,
"I can help you Jasper. Come with me, I'll give you a few days peace to recover from all these negative emotions. Alice will be calm again by then"
I followed the figure, not back into the house but deeper into the trees where I knew the lab was situated. The temptation of peace was too great to resist, but I should have known better. No one offered me anything without asking payment and now I was trapped in this suspension between life and death not sure which I would choose if I were offered the choice.
I felt like a disembodied head, my body no longer belonged to me. When there was a sudden sensation of pain, ecstasy, or discomfort, it was gone before I could grab hold of it and I wondered if I had gone mad, if these sensations were real or just ghostly torture from the souls I had taken during my time with Maria. I lost hours, or days, or centuries, in here having no idea where I was or if time even existed any longer. All I had were my memories and I replayed them over and over, struggling with the dim human ones. My mother and father, my brothers Luke and Michael, my first pony Joe. The start of the war and my enlistment, my fathers pride and mothers distraught face. The battles, the smoke and blood and cries of dying soldiers. Maria, beautiful and cold, my tortured transformation and my time training newborns, the blood and screams of tortured souls as they changed or the silent screams of terror in my head when I destroyed them on command. I tried hard to dispel these memories they only tortured me more.
I skipped forward in time, remembering Alice hopping down from the stool in the café in Philadelphia, a beautiful little pixie with a warm welcome, the first person to allow me to feel hope. Our years together had been good in the main. Sometimes she felt remote but I was sure that was down to me, I wasn't good at being part of a couple, too independent although in my eyes I needed her all the time. Meeting the Cullens and being given a way to exist that I could live with, no more terror and pain as I struck. Things had changed when Edward brought Bella home for the first time. In school she had been one of the crowd, not our crowd just the general school population although I found myself watching her when no one else was around or if Alice's attention were somewhere else. I tried hard to hide my curiosity from Edward but I think he guessed something. He had a huge smile for me when he introduced his girlfriend Bella Swan to us. Our eyes met as I greeted her but I used the excuse of my thirst to keep my distance, it wasn't the truth but the others didn't know that. I felt drawn to her and struggled to fight it. When James tracked her and Alice and I ran her south I felt more content, I was almost alone with her and her emotions. She was scared but she didn't feel worthy of our help. It was the only time we really spoke to each other.
I'd held back the memory of her party as long as I could but it crashed into my memory anyway. That disastrous evening that Alice planned, how she hadn't seen what was coming I didn't know, I think she was so wrapped up in planning the first real party we'd had in years. My feelings when I saw Bella dressed up on Edwards arm I couldn't begin to understand, I felt unhappy almost jealous which made no sense. I hadn't thought about that any more, it had been pushed aside by the families horror at my actions. Now I wondered if I would ever see the sky again, smell fresh air, touch a woman. That thought led to others, thoughts of Alice, I'd loved Alice or at least I thought I had and that she had loved me but I was wrong, if she'd loved me how could she even have thought I would hurt Bella. How could she have lost her temper with me so absolutely that I couldn't get through to her at all. Thoughts of Alice had hurt deep inside me, in my mind unable to torture the body I couldn't feel any longer. Then I thought of Bella, her face at the party as she lay among the shards of glass, bleeding onto Esmes white carpet. Her eyes held no fear of me, more guilt for bleeding and I thought a consciousness of what I had tried to do, or was that just wishful thinking? I would never know.