SUFFER

"It certainly was not my intention to make you suffer, yet I have done so; obviously it never will be my intention to make you suffer, yet I shall always do so."

—Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice

—

DECEMBER 5TH 2039

4:31PM MST

NEDERLAND, COLORADO

"She's not dead."

Jasper ignored the way his family looked at him with pity and unease. He let it brush off of him easily and shook his head. "Something isn't right here. I'm serious."

Jasper ignored Alice's frown and turned so that she was no longer visible in his peripheral. Before Rosalie and Emmett had arrived home with Esme and Carlisle, he'd logged onto his computer and spent a couple of agonizing minutes pissed off that the pages weren't loading fast enough. Somehow, Bella had figured out what he was doing—perhaps Edward had told her—and quickly joined him with her laptop, and between the two of them it only took them one minute and seventeen seconds to figure it out.

Ten before two a fire blooms

One of the places they had to go was Loveland. A wildfire that had been burning dangerously close to the town for several days now had thankfully been contained for the most part. Authorities were anxiously awaiting the precipitation that the forecast was calling for, hoping that it would calm the blaze before it spread too far. (Alice had confirmed to them, last week, that it would be fine.)

It was the fifth of December. The fire (so late in the season that it'd been suspicious when it began) had started on November 22nd.

Two before ten it lights again

Jasper knew it didn't mean days this time. The clock had begun to tick the instant the box had been dropped off. No, the instant that Peter and Charlotte had been targeted. He glanced at the clock on the wall again even though he knew it was 4:31—the sun was already low in the sky. It would set within the next ten minutes and they still didn't have a plan.

That was wrong, technically. His family had a plan. It was a half-baked, unfinished plan that completely disregarded Charlotte, but it was a plan. Jasper simply refused to acknowledge it.

"The note only gives us one valid location," Edward's words were soft from where he stood across the room. Jasper could feel Edward's lack of frustration; he was not bothered by Jasper's refusal to accept Charlotte's death as fact, he was only saddened. "We know where we need to go."

"We're missing something," Jasper insisted and fought the urge to start pacing again.

Carlisle was the only one of them sitting. In front of him on the table, on a shiny metal tray that was slowly beginning to melt (the smell was acrid) sat the hands. When Carlisle proposed that they do something to try and preserve them—put them on ice, or submerge them in water, or something—Jasper had to explain how that wouldn't work. Ice wouldn't keep them in tact and water would just rinse the venom away and make them crumble faster. The only thing they could do was reattach them as fast as possible and hope that they were quick enough.

"I mean it," Emmett was also refusing to give up so easily. "I'm sure the trail isn't gone yet. We got a good whiff of it on the way toward town and back home. It's still there."

"I know, but we can't split our numbers," Rosalie tried to keep her words kind but her fury was a bright, vivid beacon in the large kitchen. "I'm also inclined to think there's more to it."

"If we don't split up, then…" Emmett's voice trailed off. Anger and frustration and despair rolled around in him, spinning rapidly.

Jasper shook his head. Something wasn't right. He knew it.

"No one else is getting hurt," Esme chimed in from the adjoining den with Ness tucked against her side, finally silent. Ness' brown eyes were red-rimmed and her heart rate was slower than usual; all of her adrenaline had left her body, leaving her exhausted. "If staying together keeps everyone safe, we have to do it." Her words were surprisingly calm, a far cry from the fear and anguish Jasper was feeling from her. "We don't know what we're up against," she spoke firmly, reiterating words that Carlisle had declared from the start.

"We can make it to Loveland in twenty minutes," Bella chimed in, her elbow propped up on the counter that Edward was leaning back against. "'Two before ten' is eight PM. We could have three hours after that to find Charlotte."

Edward nodded. "For all we know, there's another note there. Or a clue."

"One that leads us to where twenty newborn vampires are waiting." Jasper's voice was dull.

Carlisle blanched at that, but didn't speak. No one had acknowledged the elephant in the room. No one had said a word about what they all knew was true: that this was someone looking to taunt Jasper directly. If that weren't the case, there were countless other vampires (who were also nomads) that these people could have gone after.

Jasper thought back to Alice's quick dismissal of Volturi involvement. The instant someone had thought of it she ran down the list of them, explaining what each of them were doing. Almost all of them were all accounted for. She was unsure of the location of a few of them—Alec and Rohit, one of their newer members, were among the missing from her mind—but she was certain that they were not with Peter and Charlotte.

Or, at least not with Peter.

I can't see Charlotte.

Alice did not speak up even though there was an unasked question dangling from the tip of Jasper's tongue.

What's happening to him now?

Jasper had never been good at tuning out Alice's emotions. He knew this was hard for Alice. She'd loved Peter and Charlotte the same way she loved everyone else: before she'd met them, and with her entire being. The few years the four of them had spent together traveling the country felt so, so long ago suddenly. Another lifetime, almost.

Two months ago Alice had mentioned that they ought to reach out to Peter and Charlotte and invite them to join for the holidays. Jasper had been excited by the idea but then Ness' birthday had happened, and planning for their new home in West Virginia had taken up more of everyone's attention, and he figured that maybe inviting them to celebrate Christmas while Alice was bracing everyone for a rough time with Ness this winter might be too much for the upsettable girl and too awkward to have his friends over to witness, and then the idea had gotten brushed to the side.

Alice was miserable.

"I don't see anything past us retrieving Peter. But I do see that, and I do know that the sooner we leave the better."

"Still three newborns?" Carlisle asked, his chin resting upon his steepled fingers. Alice nodded. "Nothing beyond?" She shook her head.

Edward spoke. "Our best chance is to go now, and hope that we can find any clue as to what might lead us to Charlotte." Jasper could sense the doubt in Edward's hesitant words.

I know you think she's dead, Jasper thought pointedly, angrily, you don't have to pull this shit. It would've been better off if Edward just stuck behind Alice's plan silently.

Carlisle spoke again. "Is it safe if Esme and Ness stay behind?"

"No," Jasper spoke before Alice even had the chance to. "We have to stick together. Splitting up is dangerous whether we're here or out there." He paused, trying to reign in his temper, but he was angry. He was frustrated.

Alice couldn't fucking see Charlotte.

Years ago he and Peter had made a pact. In it, they'd promised each other that if anything ever happened to the other one, Peter and Charlotte would look after Alice and Jasper and Alice would look after Charlotte.

The same night—Alice and Charlotte had been off in town; Alice had taken Charlotte to see her first film at the cinema and had given the two men a rare chance to talk privately—Peter had looked over at him.

"If anything like before ever happened again. Not that it should," Peter had amended quietly, his mind taking him a couple thousand miles away, "and not that it would ever be like before. But if there was ever a time where Char and I were in trouble, and you could only save one…"

"You're a piece of work for this one," Jasper had sighed, half of a smile on his face, "but yeah. I'd do that."

Peter had lifted his head up before dropping it back down to the ground. His fingers had been laced behind his neck as he stared up at a few stray sunbeams breaking through in the trees above them. "Wouldn't you want the same thing? For me to save Alice over you?"

"Obviously."

"Then there. It's settled." There was a pause. "You'd be a piss-poor friend if you told me 'no'."

They had laughed. Jasper was not laughing now.

"Esme and Ness will be okay if they stay," Alice spoke quietly. Hearing Jasper and Alice so vehemently on the opposite sides of a debate for once was fiercely unsettling his family. They'd disagreed before. Often, even. But not like this; not with lives on the line and death breathing down their neck. "But they should come along and just hang back. We won't need them to help but it won't hurt to have them nearby. For everyone's sake."

"We stay together then," Rosalie spoke, pushing off of the wall she was leaning against. "Let's go already."

"In a minute," Carlisle spoke, standing. He was still dressed in his white coat and pristine work clothes. "I'll meet you all outside."

The room dissolved then. Jasper watched as Esme and Ness followed, hand-in-hand, behind Emmett as he led everyone out the back doors. Bella didn't linger either and moved to catch up. In that moment Jasper couldn't decide what felt worse: Esme's worry, Ness's fear, or Alice and Edward's sad acceptance.

Jasper did not possess the proof, but he knew that this wasn't Maria. She'd never been one to play coy. All of their assaults had been upfront, direct, and violent. The only warlord he'd ever known that enjoyed twisted games like this had been Luca, but he had died back in the 1920s and had only really terrorized the armies west of Mexico City.

There had been Yves and Samuel, but Yves' calling card had been hiding body parts, not delivering them. Samuel was another that he and Maria had assumed dead by the turn of the 20th century. One of her contacts hadn't confirmed it, but had suspected much the same. Samuel had kept body parts and repurposed them. Jasper had once spoken to an old ally of Samuel who had shivered when describing the grotesque decor of his base south of Durango. The curtains and rope made of hair of varying shades, delicately braided and painstakingly hand-woven, had been the most notable observation the man had made before making the wise choice and fleeing before nightfall.

Luca and Samuel hadn't hated Jasper or Maria any more than they hated everyone else, and Yves had tried to kill everything that moved in his path, and usually succeeded, but even he'd left Monterrey, and Maria, alone for the most part.

The sound of a drawer opening and closing pulled him from his thoughts. "Catch," Rosalie tossed a few small, glimmering items in the air. Jasper caught his without looking at it, and hated the comforting feeling of the lighter in his hands. He could hear Edward and Alice catching their own. "I'm grabbing a hair-tie and I'll be out in a second." She was gone, too.

"I'm not wrong about this," Jasper did not waste more time stewing in silence as he turned to face their expressions. Everyone could hear him but his words weren't for them. They were only for Edward and Alice. He hated the way they were resigned to Charlotte's fate. He wasn't angry at them, but his frustration was certainly bubbling over in a way that didn't happen often.

Of course it was rare when Alice and Edward didn't agree. Jasper had stupidly hoped that Alice would support his claim. That she, too, would be able to see past whatever was happening even if she couldn't believe something she didn't see.

But she hadn't seen it. So that was that.

Carlisle was back in the room then, and handed Jasper the canvas bag they'd discussed. It was a few bags layered to create a thick enough barrier that the venom wouldn't burn through immediately. Jasper moved quickly, trying not to think about what he was touching when he placed Peter's and then Charlotte's hands in the bag. With the flesh in the state it was in, reattachment would either be excruciating or downright impossible. They would still try, though.

If Jasper weren't so focused on saving their lives he might have laughed. Just over a century ago, he was supposed to have done this himself. Killed both of them. Now, he held their mangled, detached, rotting hands in a bag, dead set on getting them both back to this house, fucking alive.

He followed Carlisle out of the kitchen and toward the backyard, ignoring the way Edward and Alice trailed close behind.

Alice slipped into step beside him, her fingers just barely brushing against the back of his knuckles, and Jasper tightened his fist. She'd comforted him with this exact movement so many times throughout the years. It was not comforting to him now.

Still, she remained close to his side, and he could feel her concern and love and sadness. There had been very few times in his life that he prayed that Alice was wrong but this was one of those times. The wish for her to be wrong was all-consuming.

Jasper would never admit it, but he was terrified. Jasper feared that Peter and Charlotte might both die. But even more, he feared that only one of them would die.

He'd seen what the death of a mate could do to one of their kind.