Chapter Fourteen
Jasper
My moments of lucid thought were getting shorter as the blood and rage gnawed away at my brain, each small part disappearing and taking with it Jasper Whitlock. So it had come to this! I had struggled on a while longer once Peter and Charlotte left but the burden I carried was just too great and I could find nothing to relieve it. I heard of the underground fighting scene and as it was the only thing I was any good at I travelled to find out more. At first no one would accept a fight from me but there were always newcomers, those that had yet to hear about The Major and they were easy meat for me. With each victory I became more the beast and less the man, I took on more fights to relieve the frustration and rage but each was like gasoline on a fire and the rage overtook me, I started to fight humans and drank their blood when I won, it didn't stop the rage but it cooled the fire in my throat. I lost more and more of myself with each win and before I was even aware I was working for a syndicate, a group of vampires who worked, secretly from the Volturi, in concert with some of the Guardian tribes making money from their unusual fighters. I was turned into a money machine but they weakened me, the amount of blood I got was rationed and as I fought more vampires and Guardians I became weaker.
Now I had lost my mind altogether, had it been a vision? A longing that conjured up the human girl who spoke to me? The one who felt compassion for my plight? What was her name? I pulled it with difficulty from the chaos in my head... Bella. If she was real what was she doing here where life was cheap and living dangerous? If she were a dream I hoped to see the same again, the illusion of someone who cared. I remembered the feel of her soft warm skin under my fingertips and turned my hand to look at them. Where they had touched her were darker patches of skin, as if she had branded me somehow. That was crazy, only venom had the ability to scar such as me and she wasn't a vampire, I'd heard her heartbeat, smelled the scent of her blood. I still remembered that scent, it called to me, pulling against the bars I'd built around my last vestiges of humanity. Why I'd bothered I had no idea until now. Had I been wrong? I remembered Daisy's words, I would find my way after dark and dangerous waters. Had I been a fool to ignore her words? Was there really someone out there for me? Bella perhaps?
The thoughts whirled round and round and I screamed in my pain and confusion. If she were the one how would she find me again? Did I want her coming here? Stepping into danger for me? That stirred another memory, a question I had asked Alice once, would you die for the one you loved? I couldn't allow this human girl to put herself in danger to find me if she were real. I was gambling that she would try again, I could be wrong, I hardly trusted anything I saw and felt now, unless it was in the arena. That was the only time things felt as if they really existed. I looked at my fingers again and lifted them to my face, I could still smell her scent very faintly. Suddenly a strange idea filled my head, if I broke out, escaped, would I be able to find her? I knew her trail would be cold by now, and would I pose a greater danger to her? Would my blood lust take over and kill her, drain her before I could stop myself?
I needed peace from this chaos to think, to stop the killing and try to find a way out, a way that would allow me to find the only human who had ever shown me compassion and not kill her. Breaking out was easy enough, I knew the humans thought they had me secure but even weak as I was I had the strength to tear the bars out and get away, but where? Where would I go? Where would give me peace enough to stop the overriding urge to kill and feed. I closed my eyes as waves of rage swept over me but as they subsided again I saw it, my haven, the cabin. No one knew about it except the old man I'd bought it from and the lawyer who'd arranged the transfer of deeds. I would be safe there, safe enough to pull together the vestiges of Jasper Whitlock, or at least attempt to.
I knew I would be alone here in the warehouse until morning, the humans who were running this particular show were too intimidated to come and face me in the dark unless it was show time. They thought the temptation of a fight kept me controlled and themselves safe but they were wrong. The only reason I didn't break free and kill them was they offered me what I wanted, violence and blood, pain and rage, the only things that kept me from insanity, although on the very edge of it. I put my hands round the bars and tested their strength seeing the steel bend as I gripped it. One arm was still healing from the claws that had ripped huge furrows in it but the other would be strong enough alone. I grasped bar after bar with my good hand and pulled, each one coming free with a screech of tortured metal. When enough were removed I stepped through and ran to the door grabbing a jacket from a hook, it would camouflage me if I were seen. The door was heavy metal and padded but it too yielded to my strength and I staggered out into the fresh air breathing deeply. There was no one close by and I ran for the high chain link fence leaping over and landing awkwardly on the other side. My body was unused to such freedom and stiff from captivity but holding my damaged arm to my body I continued to run, away from the city and into the wilderness of the forest. I was going to the only sanctuary left to me.
As I ran my mind started to clear of the red mist that had obscured everything else. Only one thing remained, the girls face... Bella. I had to get my act together and find her, I still couldn't say why the urge was so strong but it consumed me. Bella, I would find her, feel that compassion again, the warmth of it wrapping around me and touching the deepest part of my being, the part that had almost atrophied over the last few years. And if I couldn't find her, if she were merely a dream, what? Would I go back to the fighting scene? No, it wouldn't be close enough to hell for me any longer, if I couldn't find her I would find a way to end my miserable existence once and for all.