Chapter Seventy Six

The Major

I looked down on the girl who dared defy me and felt sick to my soul, if I still had one that is, if I did it must be blackened and rotted by now after everything I had done over the past century and more. She lay there one side of her face bruised and now her cheek scratched and bleeding and it was all my fault. Everything that had happened, every death of a loved one was my fault when it came down to it. I left my family looking for glory and I got that but the price had been astronomical. I should have been there to save them, to try and stop the murderous bastards who drained my family of their very blood. If I couldn't have beaten them at least I would have died trying and been buried beside them. Then there was Samuel, I knew he wasn't very bright and I knew he had a tendency to wander but I still let him go off on his own and where did he go? The place he felt he belonged, back to the family home. If I'd checked on him or even if I'd turned up just a few minutes earlier I could have saved him from that lynch mob. Instead I found him hanging from a branch of the tree we used to climb as children Adam and I hauling him up to join us.

I straightened up and backed away looking at Bella in horror as she held her cheek and sat up slowly.

"I'm sorry Major that was cruel and uncalled for."

I shook my head in exasperation, she was apologising to me? What did it take for this girl to see she was in the presence of pure evil.

"STOP IT"

My shout reverberated round the chamber and she jerked in reflex.

"Stop trying to save me, make excuses for my behaviour. I know the truth. I know what I am. I accepted it many years ago. You can't save me Bella. No one can, its too fucking late for that."

I ran to the entrance ripped open the doors and climbed out slamming it shut again and then I ran.

Bella

I was stunned by just how much guilt and self loathing The Major was carrying inside and had been for so long, it was amazing he had survived thus far with so much pain. It seemed imperative that I find him and try to help him understand he wasn't responsible for all those deaths, that he wasn't irretrievably lost. I wiped my cheek on my sleeve noting there was little blood but still he hadn't attacked and it was human blood his food source. Then I climbed the steps carefully and pushed the door open slowly listening for any sign he was close by but hearing nothing. Once outside I had no idea which way to go, he knew this area and I didn't but I closed my eyes and prayed something would connect us leading me to him. At first I felt nothing but then I felt a faint tugging sensation and I knew instinctively that it was the bond Charlotte had told me about but could I trust it? Maybe it would lead me away from him for my own preservation. Shaking that thought off I started moving in the direction of the tug.

I have no idea how long I walked just that the further I went the stronger the tug became and then I stepped out of the trees onto the banks of a creek and sitting beside it I saw him, his vampire skin sparkling in the sunlight like a diamond. He looked so beautiful that for a second I forgot why I was here and just stared. He made no sign that he knew I was there but I got the feeling he did never the less. Finally shaking my head clear of the sight I stepped slowly over until I stood beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder which was rock hard but shaking slightly as if with grief.

"May I join you?"

He didn't answer but I sat down next to him looking into the water that flowed slowly by, leaves and small twigs floating like an armada on its surface.

We sat like this in silence for over an hour but my arm had crept around his shoulders and he didn't try to shrug it off, instead I hoped it gave him a little comfort. I truly believe if he had been human he would have been crying, bitter tears for the life he had been forced into knowing how much more his family would have wanted for him. When at last I felt the shudders slow I spoke again,

"Whatever happened wasn't your fault."

"It's too late Bella, far too late for apologies or regrets."

"Yes it is but it's not too late to begin again. Become the man you were once more."

He turned to me with such misery in his eyes that I felt my heart breaking for him.

"No, I've done too much to start over. These hands are stained with the blood of a thousand victims and the venom of many more. I can't take back what I've done and I can no longer justify it so where do I go from here?"

I wasn't sure what to say, if anything but as the silence lengthened once more I understood he really didn't know the answer to that question, it was down to me. Instinctively I knew I was the only person who could answer that for him, I held the key to his deliverance.

"You know I don't know your name Major."

"Jasper, Jasper Whitlock, or at least I used to be."

"Well it's down to you now to make a choice. You can continue as The Major and work for the Volturi or you can leave that life behind and become Jasper Whitlock again."

"There is no going back Bella."

"No you can't but you can go forward as Jasper Whitlock and if you do that you no longer have to do it alone."

"Really? I have no one Bella, that's one of the tragedy's of being a vampire."

"You have me."

I left those words hanging in the air.

The Major

Her words hit me hard, I had no idea what made her say that but she truly believed it.

"Why would you say that? I nearly killed you and your father."

"But you didn't because you understood just as I did that there is something between us. Charlotte explained some to me, she and Peter are mates, it's her gift, to read relationships between people."

Mates? The word meant nothing to me, sure I'd heard of it but I'd never seen any or if I had then I hadn't recognised them as such.

"Do you have any idea what you are suggesting Bella?"

"A little but I'm sure the rest will come in time, if we let it."

"You must be mad wanting to get tied up with me. You have no idea what it would mean."

"Well, I'm not sure wanting has anything to do with it. It seems to be something unconscious, something buried far deeper than we can influence. Do you feel it?"

I thought about this, of course I'd felt something, it was the thing that had driven me crazy since I set eyes on her, the thing that made me bring her back, bring her with me. The thing that stopped me killing her in the root cellar when I smelled her blood. I was frightened, afraid to admit it to her because doing so would give her power over me and that was scary. I had been alone, in control of myself for so long I wasn't sure I could share any longer, I wasn't even sure I knew what the words sharing, love, or closeness meant or exactly what Bella was offering.