L'Etre et L'Ame CHAPTER VIII A Twilight Fanfiction

[rennaise]

A/N Before we begin this chapter, I just want to take a moment to thank all of those who have sent reviews. They have been a great encouragement to me, not only for this little fic-piece, but also in RL. It’s just nice, and gives me a little heart.

Errata: In the previous chapter, I had to make a last-minute revision (how long Sam gave to find Victoria-should have been 48 instead of 24 hours.) I’ve corrected all the consistency problems about that in the chapter now (I hope!) and am grateful to the sharp-eyed reader who pointed it out to me!

Thanks also to Ava Sinclair for the excellent Beta.

Now, without further ado. . . .

CHAPTER VIII

Bella didn’t fly off the handle as the reality of Jasper’s disappearance settled in. Instead, the shock burned off with a sizzle, like alcohol poured into a heated pan. She felt blank, eviscerated. Irina’s face blurred in and out for a moment, and Bella blinked to still her vision.

“Bella?”

“I’m okay. I’m fine,” she said, shrugging Tanya’s hand off of her shoulder.  She realized they had been calling her name for some time, but Bella had no idea how long she had stood frozen: a second, an hour? She didn’t even care why Jasper had left, it was the fact that he had, without even telling her or leaving a note. Left her as if she meant nothing at all to him. And really, did she have any right to expect something from Jasper? He hadn’t wanted her in the first place-had made it perfectly clear that changing her had been an accident. A bitterly regretted mistake.


She didn’t realize she was even moving until she broke the doorknob to Tanya’s bedroom off in her hand.  She closed the door then leaned against it, and her mind registered her surroundings without any interest. Computer, dried roses, a framed poster from Tori Amos’s “Plugged ‘98” concert tour, the tidily made bed that smelled of Tanya and the faint traces of previous “guests.”

It was enough to make her crazy. She had been cooped up for nearly two months, and the scope of her life had contracted to this house, the open range around it, and four people--one of whom left at the first opportunity. Bella scuffed the floor hard with the ball of her foot, and the carpeting tore from the tacks and rippled into tiny beige mountains. She kicked it again and the carpet padding ripped too making tiny formless particles explode into the air.

Bella wanted to scream, but she choked it down to a grating snarl in her larynx. So many things she wanted right now, large and small. She wanted to hear Edward’s voice and for him to comfort her. She wanted to order a Happy Meal, completely without irony. She wanted to know she was loved.

She took Edward’s letter from her pocket and pressed it to her face, sniffing hard, trying desperately to scent him. He was still there, slightly sweet, but masculine somehow. The scent was fading, though. Fading so, so quickly.

She couldn’t control the angry sob that broke from her throat, and she kicked at the carpeting again. In the corner a little wastebasket wobbled and fell over, disgorging crumpled wads of paper, poorly made origami frogs, and gum wrappers onto a naked big of carpet padding. That, of all things, was the last straw, and instead of exploding into a frenzy, she simply crumpled to the floor. It was so easy for her to throw things away, to destroy without thinking, only later to have to deal with the consequences.

She had mis-prioritized so grievously, Bella realized. The things she wanted now were those she was so anxious to slip. She missed her life in Forks, the tedium of high school. Her dead-heart absolutely ached for her mother and father.  No longer did she think of them as Charlie and Renee. She ran her fingers roughly against her scalp and squirmed along the floor in an agony of frustration and self-loathing. She had cast her parents off. And now the same was happening to her. Karma was a bitch.

And if she had underestimated her own blood family, had she overestimated Edward’s?

She had been so confident in Edward’s love. In her darkest hours of doubt in the two months since, Jasper had even assured her of it, though something lurked on his face as he did. Bella hadn’t taken it for deceit. Not until now. And she had been certain of Alice’s love too. And Carlisle’s and Esme’s and even Emmett’s. Before her change she wouldn’t have doubted it, but now. . . .If Edward loved her, surely he would have found a way to come to her before now.

It was so stupid, Bella realized, with the crushing clarity of hindsight. She had been willing to jump right into “forever” with people she had known but eight months. Her mother married Phil after they had been together for fourteen, and Bella thought that stupid--and would have thought it stupid had it been anyone, not just her capricious mother. Why had she supposed eight months was enough time to even consider a near-eternity of vampirism?

She stared at the ceiling and ran these ideas through her head until she felt they were wearing a deep groove along the synapses in her brain.

Suddenly, she heard a noise outside of the door, and she jumped to her feet to crack it open. Irina hovered in the hallway, looking worried.

“How long have you been out here?” Bella asked.

She gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Just a little while. I didn’t want to intrude.”

“I just need to be alone a bit.”

Irina nodded. “I just thought. . . if you need to talk. . .?”

“Can’t be alone with two,” Bella snipped.

In the hallway, Irina blinked, stung. Bella hoped, in spite of herself, that Irina would push back, convince her that she was worth being around. Alice would have. Of the three Denali sisters, it was Irina who had been the warmest toward her. She had Alice’s kindness and passion, if not her extroversion and aggressiveness.  But Irina wasn’t Alice.

“Oh.  Okay, well. I’ll be going out. Kate and Tanya want to take a run, and I guess I’ll go to.”

“Have fun,” Bella said, without emotion.

“All right.” Irina turned away, clearly wondering what she had done wrong, and Bella watched her disappear around the corner. Despite her reserve, Bella wasn’t cold, and she didn’t like hurting people. Any other time, she would have run to Irina, apologizing and greedily taking the comfort she desperately wanted.  But she meant to punish herself now, and everyone else.  It was too little too late. And thoug she had no right to expect more from anyone anywhere, she wanted it anyway.

When she finally hear the front door pull shut, Bella slipped through the dining room, and snagged Kate’s set of keys from the table by the door. On second thought, she took Kate’s as well. The sisters would find a way to follow her, eventually, but Bella could at least have a head-start. She didn’t know where she was going, and it didn’t really matter. Ideas flew through her head as though hurled by a rapid-fire pitching machine. Perhaps she’d swim to Russia. She could do that, right? Or drive straight East and hop her way into Greenland?

At the very least, Bella would do them the decency of leaving a note.

“Sorry about the car. I left the clothes though. Thanks for everything. Bella.”

She tapped the edge of the sticky note pad against the table top, considering. It was vague, but there wasn’t much more to say. And if she let herself dwell on it, she might come to her senses--might understand why she was doing what she was doing--and Bella wasn’t having that.

The garage door rumbled up as she slid in behind the wheel of Kate’s Acura-whatever.  She tore down the drive onto the back road that ran past the house, and cruised the dozen or so miles to the highway before daring to look back.  No one was following. The feel of the car roaring beneath her was so powerful and liberating, she wondered why she hadn’t done this sooner. Laughing out loud, she gave a whoop that managed to bounce off even the plush interior and ring in her own ears.

The thrill didn’t last long, however, and the first shock came when the car began an ominous rattle and whine. “Damn. Just figures I’d pick the wrong one,” she muttered to herself. She glanced down at the dash, her only hope of figuring out what was wrong with the vehicle, if she had one at all, and saw the odometer needle twitching at 118.

“Holy crow!”

She pulled her foot off the accelerator, and the engine sighed as if grateful.

* * * * *

Jasper could scarcely fathom it, the pack was larger now than before he and Bella had left. Jacob Black had become a wolf in the last two months, as had several of his young friends. There was even a female wolf, Leah, and her little brother was the youngest member of the pack. Even now, three of them were snuffling down the little trails that forked off the main one, as they followed a west-leading trail about twelve miles from the house.  Victoria had obviously been biding her time here in the forest, spending time traipsing over the river and through the pines.  There were dozens of trails, and few made any sense to him at all.

Jasper grew more frustrated with himself, thinking how stupid it was to split up. It hadn’t even seemed like a good idea at the time, but he was willing to try it. Sam had suggested creating mixed teams of wolves and vampires, since “you might be able to pick up things we can’t.” What went unsaid was that the vampires would be the minority in each group, making them more vulnerable, and less likely to attempt escape. And that was the greater point, Jasper thought. Overall though, Sam had appeared reasonable--as reasonable as the circumstances would allow--but he refused to budge on the forty-eight hour timetable. The young war-chief had been pushed to the brink, and this was his one irrational sticking point.

Edward had explained Sam’s was a leadership of willing followers. As a war-chief, Sam’s decisions weren’t absolute; the other pack members weren’t obliged to follow rule and line, but they were willing to let Sam lead-so far, Edward had said.

The fact that they were young men-hell, even mere children to Jasper and to Edward as well, didn’t make them any less dangerous; in fact, it made them more dangerous, more volatile with their quickly shifting emotions.   Fortunately, Jasper hadn’t felt that shift among his hunting-companions/guards. What he had felt that night was a sort of healing he hadn’t expected. It was on the threshold of the house, before they went with Carlisle to meet up with the Quileute.

He sensed the apology before it was on his brother’s lips, and before the hand was on his shoulder.

Jasper turned to look into Edward’s face.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for her. That I couldn’t protect her.” He choked out. The waning moon shone a pale light on the familiar golden eyes, and the tiny crinkles of pain at the corners almost gave him back some of the years the Change had stolen.

It was a vague apology in some ways, Jasper thought. He might have been referring to Alice or Bella. Then there was a feeling like a rock dropping into his belly as he realized Edward was talking about both of them.

“I know,” Jasper said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Edward shook his head and began to protest, but Jasper cut him off.

“There’s no fault right here that we don’t both bear. And there have been lots of bad choices. They’re not limited to me and you.” He said it with more heat than he meant, but he held Edward’s eyes, and the two truly saw one another for the span of several breaths.

Finally, Jasper added. “I’m sorry too. You don’t know how much.”

Edward managed a nod, and Jasper returned the grip on his brother’s shoulder. After a moment taking strength from one another, they’re off to join the wolves. Whatever difficulties still linger between them they can deal with later, provided there’s such an occasion.

In the clearing, as they stood among the Quileute youth, Jasper found he had a little more compassion for Carlisle’s position. The two semi-circles faced on another. Sam at the keystone of his, Carlisle’s in his. And though everyone, including Jasper, clearly expected Carlisle to speak for his family, he deferred to Jasper.

“Jasper will have a better idea than any I can come up with,” Carlisle said, when Sam asked for strategies in tracking Victoria. Sam barely managed to avoid a complete double-take, and Jasper was the only one to feel the ambivalence and worry concealed behind Carlisle’s strong, calm face. From that point, Sam spoke to only to Jasper, and Carlisle just gave him a tiny nod when Jasper telegraphed his confusion. Carlisle would have turned to Jasper whatever the case, but this entire hands-off approach took him by surprise. Jasper wondered whether it owed to some sort of guilt-debt on Carlisle’s part, which seemed unlikely. But he had nothing else to attribute it to. The question chaffed only until the groups were decided and the search areas divided, and he shucked it off choosing to focus solely on bringing Victoria down.

Carlisle had been sent with a group of four wolves including Sam; Edward was with several others including Leah and her brother Seth. Jasper hoped they were having more luck than his group. He kicked a head-sized rock out of the ground in front of him and watched it bounce several feet along the ground, gathering his thoughts before plunging further into the . . .

Victoria seemed to know she’d be tracked eventually, and had been taking care to lay a bizarre network of trails.  She’d take to the river, walking upstream instead of down. Several times Jasper followed her scent up a pine so high he doubted she could jump. Sometimes, he found her scent on adjacent trees, but others were lone and had no near-fellow to which she could leap.

What the hell was she doing?

A little further up the hillside Paul smashed through some snags, causing a crack and rumble like old timber falling.

“If you can’t be silent, could you at least try not to sound like a rampaging rhinoceros?” Jasper practically snarled with frustration, and the fact that Paul couldn’t reply with any more than a snort and jerk of his massive shoulder made him that much more angry.

It was difficult enough having a team who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, communicate with him. They’d exchanged few words as men before changing into wolf form, but since then, the Quileutes had done little more than show him a begrudging sort of tolerance.  However, Jacob, Paul and Embry seemed to work so well together that Jasper wondered if they could communicate among themselves in some other manner, and that he found disturbing. While killing Victoria was the objective here, the wolves were enemies too.  And Jasper did not know these enemies-not like he wished he did.

Fortunately, they didn’t know all of the vampire secrets either. One of the boys had voiced frustration that they hadn’t managed to find Victoria’s “den” as he put it, “where she would hole up to sleep.”

A flash of blue caught Jasper’s eye, as he sniffed his way through a tangled mess of brush. He plucked up the swatch of cotton/poly that had snagged on a low branch, sniffed at it, and threw it down in disgust.

“She’s not here,” he muttered. “The only reason she’d leave something so obvious would be if she didn’t meant to be around when it was found.” Jasper kicked at the brush and cursed. One of the wolves, lost from sight by distance and vegetation, gave a short growl of. . . was that solidarity?

They had been going for nearly forty-four hours, and the minutes ate at him like termites in his brain.  Through the dark, through the sunlight they never stopped. Jasper constantly monitored and soothed Paul’s emotional hum-he had been the one to crumple the front of the car. Jacob, the rust colored wolf, and Embry, the stocky little black, were less volatile, but Jasper wasn’t taking any chances on them either.   But a dull weariness crept over him.  Jasper never needed to sleep, but emotional exhaustion was all too real. It was the sort of thing sleep would help, were he human, but something that could merely be endured.

This was becoming absurd, and he hoped desperately that Carlisle and Edward had already caught her. They hadn’t had time to discuss options if they failed.

In his weaker moment, Jasper was seized by the impulse to just tear back straight for the house. He should have just run in and hauled Alice out first thing. Maybe that would have been better than them all being taken down separated and alone. A handful of times, Jasper had been on the verge of speeding back to Alice and take their chances together, just the two of them. But Alice would never have gone for it. This was the way to save anyone, if there was a way at all.

And if we lose, at least Bella will be safe. The thought so shocked him he dropped it like a drowned kitten. He didn’t want to think about Bella right now.

Suddenly, Embry skittered to a stop somewhere down the ridge. Paul and Jasper smelled it at the same moment. The scent came absolutely out of no where. Cedar wood and rosewater-Victoria.

“What the hell,” Jasper muttered.  Jacob and Paul crashed over to see what had caught their interest.

“Hold,” Jasper warned them, holding a cautioning arm to his side. “Something’s funny here. Spread out a bit,” he instructed them. He wasn’t sure they’d take orders, and Paul fell in reluctantly, only after a brief growl from Jacob. And he was more than moderately surprised when the wolves fanned out obediently, Paul taking left and Embry falling into line after Jacob on the right.

Jasper followed the scent into an enormous pine and scaled it. He pursued the scent as far as it reached, until it disappeared. Again. And there, swaying at the top of the tree, he finally understood what Victoria had done. She had climbed into the tree, and instead of jumping into another, she had backtracked back down. And what was the point of that? There was a yelp below, and realization hit Jasper like a hammer to the head. Looking down, he saw a blur of ginger-hair.

Paul was at her like a shot--all adrenaline, and careless as a puppy. Jasper saw it coming before Paul even felt it. Victoria caught him under the jaw with her forearm, and the sound of a gunshot which was really the crack of bone. Then she kicked him in the side, like a giraffe striking a lion. Paul landed on his side, ten feet from where he started. He must have lost some ribs with that crack, and Jasper heard the blast of air from his lungs under the pained yelp.

Jasper leapt from the tree, still shy of the mark, and in the split second it had taken him to hit the ground, turn his head to Paul and back to Victoria, she was already a retreating smear of color. Embry was standing over Paul, nosing him gingerly where he lay, teeth bared an in obvious pain. He exchanged a quick look with Jacob, and the two seemed to have a momentary argument, but Jasper couldn’t wait to see how it turned out.

He sliced through the trees watching the flicker of Victoria’s hair like flame through the trees ahead. Or maybe like the deadly light of a will ‘o the wisp.  Over the rush of the hunt, he felt a wolf pursuing him hard behind him, paws crunching. Everything screamed “wrong!” and he fought to keep his head on the goal. One of them must have decided to join the chase. Jasper focused his attention hard on Victoria, giving himself to the drive of the chase.

They were several miles on now, and Victoria was gaining ground.  It was clear why she had left so many trails now. It was going to turn into a hellacious tracking game if she slipped from sight. Evasion was her gift, Jasper was certain of it. Though he couldn’t actually be tired, Jasper felt his body betray him as his pursuit failed to keep pace. His legs couldn’t go fast enough, though he pushed himself impossibly faster. He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth seemed to hum. Every cell screamed at him in a panicked exhaustion, and he gave himself entirely to his gut-level desperation.

The landscape changed as they increased in altitude. Vegetation gave way to more rock and scrub brush. She was actually pulling away from him in earnest, and eventually Jasper was following nothing but the faint trace of rosewater on the wind, scrabbling up a steep section of mountain face.

And there he saw it, a small gap among the rocks. Jasper almost smirked. Victoria’s “den.” He eyed it warily, sniffing the air. It was as mostly clear of her scent here, so perhaps she had just taken a chance. It was a bad idea though. She’s cornered. If he had time he could wait her out, but he doesn’t.

He’s emotionally spent, not from just the last two days, but the two months preceeding. Jasper wants nothing more than to finish this. Every fiber in his body is burning with it. Now. Jasper knows it for the foolishness it is, but can’t seem to think himself out of acting.

It’s pointless to wait to for Jacob, the gap is far too small to permit him passage. As it is, Jasper is barely able to slide through the opening, and he continues on his belly until it gap opens up into a small cavernous area. He lowers himself several feet to the floor below. In here, Victoria’s scent is so thick it’s like walking into a barnyard. There’s no way of telling where she might be. He strains his ears for the faintest sound, his eyes for the tiniest shadow of movement.

Nothing.

He steps further into the cave. She’s there somewhere and, by now, she knows he’s there too.

“You got away from us once. I don’t think you’ll manage this time,” Jasper says, hoping to draw her out. There is no reply and Jasper slinks further in to the heady darkness. “Why are you here? Bella’s one of us now, there’s no vengeance you can have for James.”

There’s a funny sound in the darkness, like a stifled chuckle. But it echoes off the walls, and he can’t pinpoint its origin. It’s almost pitch black in here, and even vampire eyes need light to see by. At least he’s getting to her.

“You should have gone when you had the chance,” he says. He’s almost surprised by the response when it comes.

“But I’m not after her. You took the girl away from me by changing her, so it’s you I want. . .  for now.”

That’s all it takes for Jasper to realize that Victoria isn’t in front of him. She’s behind him. He spins back toward the mouth of the cave, and his eyes have adjusted just enough to see Victoria perched just inside the opening. She’s wedged herself in just above the opening to the cavern floor, and she’s not more than a snarl of movement dropping toward him.

Their bodies meet in a clash like the ringing of swords, and the vibrations echoed off the wall slamming and rebounding at crazy angles. She’s fury and fire, and he’s tired and taken by surprise, but determined. They crack arms and legs and faces, each scrabbling for a good handful, or mouthful, of the other. Time and time again Jasper nearly has hands on Victoria, but she seems to slither just out of reach. He thinks of nothing, but fights by reflex; it comes as naturally as sparks popping on a dry day.

The one time he manages to smash her against the wall, Victoria grabs a handful of crushed rock and dust from a jutting ledge and tosses it into his eyes. She spins out of his hold and, for the first time, Jasper felt he might actually be in trouble.   There’s a sudden burning slash across his chest, and he can feel venom seep from his wound.

Jasper’s vision is so distorted it’s disorienting, and he must fight with his eyes closed. Curiously, he finds himself stronger without relying on his sight, but he is reduced to reacting now, instead of initiating attacks. During one pass, however, he manages to seize Victoria’s arm, and he uses it to slam herself in the face.

That stuns her for a moment, and Jasper presses his advantage, he tries to sweep her legs out from under here, but there’s not enough room here, and the two crumple in on one another. He does manage to take a chunk from her shoulder, her venom drips out the sides of his mouth, but she pounces on him and clamp his head under her other arm. She tugs him toward the more open area of the cave, as he frantically digs in with his heels.

His eyes are still closed, but a faint shadow brushes across his eyelids, and a nostril-curling scent meets his nose.  Jasper understands immediately what this means and changes tactics. Instead of resisting, Jasper lets Victoria do the work. She jerks at him again, and he rushes her, crashing into her chest. Victoria stumbles backward, and Jasper drives over top, knocking her into the cave wall, just below the entrance.

Suddenly, there’s rumble, and the fall of dirt and small rocks. A crash follows, and daylight pours through the side of the hill before it’s blocked out by the snarling fury of a wolf. He’s all bared teeth, and an enormous clawed paw digging where he has apparently pulled one of the boulders from the mouth of the cave. Before Victoria can even turn the vice-like jaws have snapped on her shoulder.  Victoria’s cry of rage and shock fills the cave.

Jacob drags her from the cave with one jerk of his head, and Jasper’s right behind.

Victoria still won’t back down though. As Jasper blinks to clear his vision, he can make out the blood collecting on Jacob’s throat. He shakes her loose to get a better purchase, and Jasper dives at her.  He catches her by the leg, and they’re both on the ground.  He sinks his teeth into the soft cords at the back of the knee, and they snap.  Victoria shrieks with pain. There’s no chance for escape now, but that doesn’t stop her from trying. It’s this sort of determination that has served her so well in the past.  She smashes Jasper’s face with a booted foot, and impossibly, his nose crunches.

He’s fighting blinded again by the pain, trying desperately to keep hold of Victoria’s good leg as she pulls away. Suddenly, Jacob is there, all deadly teeth and vicious growl. And for a moment Jasper’s instinct overrides his head-knowledge, and he raises his hand to block the attack. He’s flattened to the ground and breathing the hot, wet smell of dog-breath-Jacob is standing over top of him. Squinting, Jasper sees that Jacob has his jaws around Victoria’s head. He braces himself for the crunch of skull, but it never comes. Jacob doesn’t have the stomach for it. He tries to rip her head off, one paw pinning her back to the ground as he tugs, but it won’t come loose. Not until Jasper darts in under the shining fangs and slices through the marble neck. Then, with one mighty heave Victoria’s head goes sailing, trailing the curly red hair like the tail of a comet.

Jacob stands frozen for several moments, numbed in the aftermath of what he’s done, and not until Jasper clears his throat does he stagger off top of him, looking slightly lost.

“Thank you,” Jasper says, after setting his nose, or what ever he has done to ease the throbbing. Jacob just drops his head in a slow, stunned nod. Victoria’s body is still twitching, and her limbs are trying to synchronize themselves into crawling in the direction of her head. Seeing this, Jasper makes quick work of dismembering her; Jacob gives a half-hearted effort at helping, but Jasper gently waves him off.

He understood Jacob’s reaction well enough. When the rush of battle had faded, and a man was often left with a certain numbness and a niggling fear. He questions how he managed to do what he did. People were capable of greater-and worse-than they truly knew. Jacob did help build the pyre, hauling large branches to Victoria’s broken body.

Jasper found Victoria’s head without much difficulty. Only for an instant did he allow himself to look into her face. The pale lips mouthed words she couldn’t give voice to and her eyes rolled, unseeing. He put her face-down on the pile.

Jasper stepped back and lifted his shirt, to inspect the slice across his ribs. The edges of the wound were healing themselves, but Victoria’s venom still burned. He slid the shirt over his head and wiped himself as clean as he could. Jacob made an impatient sound, his eyes flicking toward Victoria’s body and back to Jasper’s.

“I need to give it a minute. Unless you want to do it,” he said, offering the lighter toward Jacob.

Jasper could feel Jacob’s wariness of him and knew Jacob had little intention of phasing back into a man in his presence. Especially after seeing what he had done to Victoria.

“How are Paul and Embry?”

Jacob’s ears pricked up and gave Jasper a sharp look.

“I figured it out,” Jasper said. “You can talk to each other as wolves.”

Jacob’s wolf face still managed a begrudging look (at admitting the secret, Jasper assumed), but he flicked an ear and gave a jerk of his chin, and he took that to mean that Embry would be fine.

Carefully, Jasper lit the pyre and the flame exploded like a match thrown on kerosene. Jacob shied from the hot blast and even Jasper jumped back. From a safe distance, they watched the murky purple smoke slither its way across the ground. The shifted around the fire carefully as the wind changed directions and blew the fumes their way.

It was almost hypnotic, the movement of the violet smoke. It faded away as his eyes tried to trail it into the darkening twilight.  He wanted to enjoy the flames, but Victoria’s body was still crackling among them. As horrifying as some of his memories were, the clouds of vampire ash he had seen kick up in dust storms in Texas, there was something comforting and lonesome about fire.

There was often a fire crackling in the hearth in Denali, and even in the Cullen home. Though they no longer needed it for warmth, and it would be their end--if they were ever to have one--there was something friendly and hopeful about a fire.

A funny grief came over him then, pungent and palpable. Would Bella begin to feel the same about fire once she saw another vampire destroyed? Would she know it for both and enemy and a friend? Like death?

No, not yet, he thought, and the knowledge pained him. She was too young to understand the hope of death. But she would, someday. How funny that he was thinking of her again right now, but the thought of her hurt him. He should have been thinking of Alice, whom he loved with all of his being, and whom and could scarcely wait to see again. Instead, a heady guilt assaulted him, oppressive and bitter. He gasped at the intensity of it. After a moment, he realized it was not just guilt, but longing and grief that threatened to smother him. And it was not until that moment he attributed the emotions to their rightful originator.

Jasper turned very, very slowly, and there, not five paces away, Jacob bristled and eyed Jasper with a cutting, ready stare.

Now, with the threat of Victoria past, Jacob was clearly ready to dish out his own cold-serving of revenge.