Chapter Text
The body burns black. Charred.
“You may not know me, but I know you. Knew you? Know you? Ah, it is all the same.”
How did Maria even know her in the first place?
Crisp.
Bella holds Lee back, as the two Whitlock men burn the body, piece by piece. She hadn’t explained the blue yet, her head was too broken. The blood is dripping off her fingers so beautifully and hers and she wanted to lick them one by one clean again. It tastes like summer ripened cherries and stolen kisses. Frazzled. She just – she needed a moment or two or three or maybe a whole trip to Madrid where she could sip on margaritas (except alcohol would only come up later and that would probably suck) and back – before she could lay the pieces out in a way comprehensible.
The air is whispering a song she has never heard before. One part of her is in the blue world, the one the Maria she had known, lived and breathed and terrorized. The other is watching the men. Both Peter and Jasper stand with their back to her. They’re stiff. Uncomfortable. She can sympathize with that notion. There was a lot to be unpack – and Maria wasn’t a comfortable conversation for anyone. Some people existed in such a symbolically turmoil inducing way, that they were more than flesh or kevlar or words. They existed as the idea of their power. Maria had the ability to hurt and off-balance. She was inseparable from it. Bella imagined her with olive skin instead of blue. Red eyes instead of purple. While the world of blue was clouded and wrong, the real world would always pierce deeper. Whatever Bella knew of Maria, it was not enough. It would never be enough until Maria’s throat was tenderly held between the marble of Bella’s fingers, as she presented her corpse to the Whitlock brothers. Until she paid what was due in blood and venom spilled. But she didn’t wish to ask either of them why that was so.
Lee presses his snout into her hand, making a rumbling noise in his chest. Good boy. She scratches the space between his ears, as carefully as she can manage. His tail thumps against the ground.
“There’s this place in my head,” she mumbles. The wolf whines, sensing her unease.
“It’s not a good place,” she tags on, the silence unbearably loud.
Peter freezes, turning to her slowly, bending down before her on his knees, as if to say tell me more and I’ll be here for you no matter what , at the same time. He hits the ground with a violent strike, brushing a hand across her cheeks, sighing gutterly. Bella knows there is something profoundly despairing about it all. Something still inaccessible to her.
She wishes she could rip her heart out and present it to him in apology.
She wonders if it would be a fair trade for Maria’s.
But she doesn’t think it would help.
“Tell us what happened from the start, Thumper.” He mumbles, equally desolate and torn. Jasper continues to burn the pieces of the body and Lee doesn’t move and Peter is still sighing and everything is still overwhelming, but now in a lethargic way. A lot. But slow. Like a race underwater. Drifting. Drunk. Offbeat.
She misses when it was too fast to process. This is significantly worse. Micro-details and micro-expressions and micro-pain, all feeling not micro at all, when piled on top of each other. It’s a horrible epiphany beating against her skull – that small things were prone to large change. That they could grow. Worsen, if left to their devices.
Bella’s starting to think she’s not fond of change. It’s – jarring.
“When we said I would be changed – in Denali? That’s when it happened. Or after, I suppose, during the clicking and jumbling part of the loop, I was thrown into my head. She said it was somewhere outside of my head. I didn’t really understand…” She trails off uncomfortably.
“How can it be happening right outside of my head?” She had asked.
“Like a dream?” Peter clarifies reluctantly.
“No. Not at all. It felt so real. I can remember it clearly – precisely in a way memories never are. None of it’s foggy. I woke up in Arizona but the sun was shaded black and the world was cast in blue. Time moved differently there. That’s where I saw Maria – she was in the backyard to my childhood house, plucking the cactus you gave me, spine by spine. And…there was this shed? Where a beast lived. It…it was terrifying. Bad. She offered me a deal, and I took it. Questions answered for a favor.”
“What type of favor?” Jasper cut.
“She didn’t say.”
“God – you’re a fucking disaster,” Jasper mutters, shaking his head. Bella couldn’t say he sounds surprised at the realization. He’s just exhausted – the words descend from his lips as more of a slip of the tongue, than an insult. But Bella isn’t in any place to take the slightest slip. Bella isn’t feeling very Bella like at all.
The thing inside of her, screaming in her head with its wicked snarls, wants out. It wants blood and pain and destruction and Bella – Bella doesn’t know how to tell it no. She doesn’t even know if she can.
I’m so fucked.
She snarls, bestial and grizzly, “it wasn’t exactly like I knew what was happening.” Lee leans away from her. Sorry Jasper, Bella isn’t at the phone right now, please leave a message after the BEEEP.
The monster grumbles.
“Lay off her. She’s a day old – fuck – tread very carefully, brother.” Peter warns him.
Jasper opens his mouth, a pained grimace flashing in the spaces his lips pinch together. He looks so distrurbed, that Bella can’t help but feel bad. This was on her. It's her fault. He shouldn’t have to pick up the pieces. “Who knows what she’s agreed to – how binding it is – what the actual terms are? It’s Maria, Peter. It’s -“
“I know. I know just as well as you do.” Peter shakes his head, effectively dismissing him.
Jasper's voice rises, “You don’t. You weren’t her second. You weren’t there in the beginning. You don’t know what she can be like if left to her own devices.”
“Leave him alone. You have a problem with me, my decisions, not Peter’s.” The monster inside of her lurches, her chest pressing against his. Venom pools in her mouth, forcing her to compulsively swallow. It stings between her lungs. The creature inside of her pushes the Bella part of her down, letting the venom pool and drip with that everascent silver-ish gleam. She foams at the mouth. Deranged. Lost.
STOP STOP STOP DON’T HURT HIM, the lost piece of her pounds against it.
Please, she begs.
Please don’t let me hurt him.
Jasper eyes Peter and Lee behind her, both tense and readying for a fight. “Then call off your guard dogs, bunny.”
Bella doesn’t turn, her voice staying mad but just a bit cracked at the center, the sharpest bits spiraling out from the epicenter of the beast. “I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry that your so fucking -“
“Oh, you're sorry? Are you?” He interrupts, the words dripping in condescension.
“Like you could do better.” She sneers.
The rage inside of her grows tendrils, lengthening its scope and calling for the destruction of it all. She can feel it press inside the mason jar of her head, ever so fragile and leaking and creaking and were vampires supposed to get headaches? It’s rage. Fire. Red red red. Red like the cloaks of the Volturi and red like the blood of the man she slaughtered and red like what she once was. She can feel it pulse inside of her, beating at the speed of a robin heart –
“I have. You don’t know anything, little bunny.”
His chest to hers. His eyes disgusted. Her; shattering once again.
There was a reason you never kept the spider in the jar. You released it. You had to – or it would die.
Click.
YOU COULD BE GREAT, YOU KNOW.
There was something in her head that told her she could be greater than the pain, the misery and parasitic indifference. There was something that burned when she spoke. She pushed it down again.
“Bunny?” Her hands loosen around him, taking a step back to see where they’ve arrived. The desert blankets them both.
Her mouth opens, stunned, “Jay?” She asks, her purplish eyes meeting his greenish ones under the cerulean. His scars flicker under the light.
His hand lowers from her shoulders, gripping her upper arm tightly and pulling her to his side.
“Peter?” She gasps, swiveling to find the man to no avail. All she sees is a blue desert. Barren besides them.
The world spins in a 360, dizzying and disastrous, as Jasper keeps her tucked in close, his stance expectant of attack. What in the world?
Holy fuckin-
NOW, YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.
Bella can hear the loose panting of the dark creature from the shed, her, she recognizes. It moves on all fours, bones struck at an odd angle, and limbs slightly too long. There was something overly stretched about its skin. Its fingers are cracked, splintered like they had been ground to the bone and its mouth is open eldritchly wide. It appears distorted. Like a cracked mirror. It moves like a miscoded robot.
It’s crying. Dripping crimson tears, where she knows they should be venom and not blood, falling a deep purple beneath the never-moon-light.
Jasper moves to shield her as the beast sees them, its eyes childishly wide and ever-so curious. It smiles. And then it runs. CloserandCloserand -
UNCLICK
She hits the ground on her shins, her back curling protectively to protect her torso; though she does not need to breathe, she is panting. Bella can feel the loss of Peter. Can physically see how un-there he is – how lost her stone heart burns without him.
“Fear.” She stutters, a divine revelation sinking with the word, “it’s now triggered by fear. Not death. Fear.”
“You should have lost it.” Jasper contemplates. Her head flinches to him, noticing him embarrassingly late. He lays on his back, a muted version of her panting traveling through his chest. She watches it – rising and falling. Bella counts the seconds between the motions.
The mason jar of her head is splintered, but she can feel it heal. The glass bits weld back together. The dying spider never escapes.
“No, no that’s not what Eleazar said. He said my gift was to trap things right? And the change means permanence? So what if -”
“You trapped the blessing when you changed. It’s not reactive to intrusive gifts anymore, it’s fucking weaponizing one.” He rushes to finish, flying up to pace, in a very Jasper-like manner.
They’re in the alley again. The distinct blood stain from the body is still there. Still warm. She drags her fingertips through it, watching it streak like chalk on suburban sidewalk.
But no body.
“We need to call Peter,” Bella pats herself down in search of a phone, coming up empty. She looks up to Jasper, who holds his mobile with a loose grasp.
“It’s dead.” He stares at it, the grip tightening. His eyes flicker to her, to the blood, then back to the phone. “The jump wasn’t too long ago. Maybe,” he bites the inside of his cheek, his eyebrows furrowing, “an hour? We know where we’re supposed to be at this time.”
“He won’t know that. We just – what? Disappeared on him?” She scowls, rubbing the crimson liquid between two fingers. “Let’s steal a phone.” Jasper nods slowly in agreement. Head snapping towards the entrance to the alley.
“You can’t be out there, bunny. You’ll lose it.” He reminds her.
“Hmm…might not be necessary.”
His nostrils flare.
It looks, like Ms. Jennie Han is going to die again.
Pity.
Then there’s a lot of squelching. Bella, or the Bella that could comprehend anything other than, DIEDIEDIE–DIE–MURDERHERFACE–DIE, privately wondered how Ms. Jennie Han found herself in these situations. Her flight must have been fully canceled – or maybe the change hadn’t sent her back to the normal looping day. Maybe it had been the day after. Maybe, a tiny part of Ms. Jennie Han, desperately wished to get her face ripped off by a creature with no better understanding of violence than a chimpanzee, when hungry. At least Jasper was willing to share their prey. What a great bonding activity this was. It wasn’t everyday somebody just walked into a darkened alley willingly, after being repeatedly murdered in previous encounters by the inhabitants of said alley.
If Ms. Jennie Han survived this again, they should really send her a fruit basket.
With her luck, she would probably be allergic to strawberries and swell up like one of those animal balloons your parents forced a clown to make you for your sixth birthday, not knowing your worst fear was clowns and the clown they hired could only make worms and snakes – until she popped.
Bella pulls off of her neck, the vignetted vision hazing away like a sad little cloud, and meets Jasper’s crimson eyes at the other side of her neck.
They both look down to Ms. Jennie Han.
“I’m not going to feel bad about it this time.” He lies to her.
“Sure.” She agrees easily.
Ms. Jennie Han’s corpse hits the ground with a great THUNK, as he releases his hold on her torso.
He frowns deeper at her.
“At least you didn’t gaslight her this time.” He murmurs under his breath.
Bella sighs, “There is that.”
They sit in silence. Neither search the body for her phone yet. The moment feels too fragile. Bella gets this twitchy feeling beneath her ribs, uncomfortable, like an itch beneath a cast, but she can’t exactly stick a pen under her ribs to see if it would alleviate it. She squints.
Actually – she probably could.
“Whatever you’re thinking, please for the love of whatever god is up there, do not attempt it.” Jasper orders.
Bella shrugs. It wasn’t like she was really going to do it. Probably.
She licks her palm, starting where her wrist is and slurping all the way to the fleshy side of her knuckles. Jasper clears his throat. “What’s wrong?” He tensely questions.
She groans, it’s a soft and sorta fuzzy around the edges kind of sound, “there’s this itchy feeling beneath my ribs.”
“Guilt?” He incredulously defines.
So judgy.
Guilt. Bella spins the word around in her head, letting it sink and coat and shiver. She strips it bare. Watches it twitch. Watches it curdle and sour and grow a coating of mold.
“Yeah. That – I’m sorry.” The words stun her, but she pushes past it, “I’m so fucking sorry that I snapped at you and said what I said and made that stupid deal and I – I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I know you don’t deserve this and –” The words catch in her throat and suddenly he’s pulling her into her arms and curling over her like a horizon line to watch on rough seas. It’s exactly that. He’s her land when the storm creeps like a harbinger of ill omen. He’s her ground.
“Shut up, bunny. You’re okay.”
“But I – I don’t know how to fix it.” She whispers into his chest.
“Then don’t do it alone. Who said this was you against the world, it’s me and it’s Peter and it’s Alice – and everyone else if we need this. You have us, bunny. We stand with you. Even if it’s dumb or horrible or…” he swallows, “or Maria. We stand with you.” He soothes below her ears, stroking her messy silver hair beneath the rough of his calloused fingertips.
“What did I do to deserve you, Jay.”
“You’re family, bunny.”
She leans away from him, their eyes locking and his gaze is so fond, so gentle in all of the ways she knows Jasper rarely is. She had always thought him the most distant of the Cullen Coven, but that’s not it at all. He just puts his whole heart into the things he cares about. And then spends all of his time being an annoying mother hen (mixed with a half traumatized frat bro in sometimes the oddest of ways).
Ms. Jennie Han’s corpse lies still between them. Bella returns the fond smile, her eyes beaming with fondness.
“I’m happy I have people. People who love me. Want me around. It’s –? It’s so different from the intrusiveness with my human family, where no matter what I was doing it was either an imposition or it was me being the authority or just – I like knowing there is a space for me with people who love me. That’s all.” The side of his lips drags wider, something hesitant and almost bashful drawing out with the movement.
“I lo-”
She pushes him away, situating herself against the alley wall. Bella slaps against the concrete with a plopping sound.
“Not you. You have cooties.” She snorts.
He rolls his eyes, stepping over to her. Plop. He leans against her side on the ground.
“You’re such a bitch. That was such a great moment! It was theatrical. Cinematic. The type of moment you can’t get it back.” Jasper’s chin tilts towards the sky, his eyes reflecting back the sky.
“Payback.” She nudges his shoulder. “Love you too, Jay.”
He nudges her back.
“I always wanted a sister.” He informs her, his voice carrying an ‘as a matter of a fact’ tone.
She squints at his profile. “What about Rosalie?”
The silence engulfs them.
“Okay, fair.” She breaks the moment. “You didn’t have any siblings as a human?”
“I have two brothers. Had.” He corrects, “they were both older. Both assholes. For different reasons, mind you. You wouldn’t have liked either of them.”
Jasper tilts his head back down, eyeing the blood stained hands placed in his lap. He wipes the blood against the denim of his jeans. It’s just them and a mostly exsanguinated corpse in the alley, soaking in the moment. It’s peaceful. Nostalgic, almost.
“I don’t like most people.” Bella sasses.
His shoulder thumps into hers. “You REALLY wouldn’t have enjoyed their company. Damn if I did most of the time.” Jasper sighs, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“What was it like back then?” Her words go unanswered for a minute. She knows it’s a question he’s always been reluctant to answer – for good reason – but she asks again, because she thinks he might just answer this time. That he might be ready for her to hear it. Or possibly just, for him to acknowledge it.
“There are gaps. I remember my family's faces. Josie and Wyatt. Stern. Loving. Bad at listening. What my brothers sounded like. Their names: Wade and Jebediah. I was the baby of the family. Always right. Always perfect. I can taste the gunpowder from the first battle I was in. What the weather was like. Warm. Dry. Hell – when the summer was the brightest. I don’t remember much else. Events for sure – but there’s a lot of missing context. For however much I would like to say it was simpler, I doubt it truly was.” He drawls low and rough.
She takes his stained hand into her own, and squeezes tightly. Outside of their bubble, she can hear the cars pass and girls walking down the block and a whole world living out there that feels incredibly small in comparison to his shoulder touching hers as their hands join.
“And then there was Maria. I was evacuating the women and children from Galveston – thought I saw a group of abandoned women or something. Not quite sure what was going through my head. I just wanted to help. Ever the dutiful son.” He bitterly twangs, “it was Maria and her sister’s, Nettie and Lucy. The southern wars? That was all Maria. Nettie, she was the first to get in trouble. She got sent to Volterra for reconnaissance as a form of punishment. I guess Maria didn’t want to kill her for disobeying – thought it was the next best way to get her out.”
“What happened to her?”
“Who? Nettie? Shit, our favorite little vampire, Eleazar, was said to have killed her for being in love with his mate. I don’t believe it. But he’s prone to bragging about it. In truth, Eleazar couldn’t harm a fly. Couldn’t even catch one if he tried. He’s a nasty fucker, sure, but he’s a fragile one. I wasn’t really around anymore at that time, so I can’t say for sure. There was – Peter. And Charlotte, I suppose, by then. I got out after a while. There isn’t much more to say. ”
“That’s…” She pauses, struggling for the words. “Did you leave anybody – back in Texas, I mean?”
He shakes his head passively, emotions neutral, “No. No, my brothers were both married when I left. I was still a kid. Younger than you, even.”
Her fingers trace a scar on the back of his hand. “Sounds lonely.”
“Sometimes.”
He sighs, the back of his head hitting the wall behind them.
“The worst part was that it wasn’t all bad. Fuck – sometimes I miss it. Maria, she isn’t a monster because she’s inhuman – she’s a monster because she chooses to be. But she wasn’t all bad. The worst things never are. Maria, she’s like lightning. Horrible. Deadly, as if she was a force of nature. Destructive. Always destructive.”
“And then there was Peter.” She surmises.
“And then there was Peter.” He confirms.
The blood from the corpse has trickled down like a miniature river, kissing the toes of their shoes.
She drops her head on his shoulder. They both stare forward. “How’d you go from…whatever to brothers? Like – why didn’t he -”
“Hate me? Don’t really know. I would’ve.” His words float weightlessly.
“Yeah.” She tells him. Because she would’ve if she was Peter. Of course she would’ve.
Jasper blond curls tickle at her nose when he looks down at the tiny ruby river. Her nose scrunches. “You’ll have to ask him if you want to know. That’s his story to tell.”
She huffs, clicking her tongue. “I wouldn’t even know how to ask. He can be so – complicated? Multifaceted.” Bella pauses, taking an unnecessary breath. She can scent the humans, knows that they’re there, but nobody is close. And she’s been well fed. So she stays in his grasp. The beast inside of her howls. “It must be difficult to live in his head.”
“I’ve never met a happier liar. But he’s a good man. Mmmm. Good adjacent. Good enough, I suppose.” He reiterates. Bella kicks him slightly. “What? I said he was good. Peter Whitlock, what a nice young man.”
“Peter’s mine. The liar and the man and whatever rests in the middle. I’ll take both.” Bella kicks him harder. “Plus, he’s really fucking hot. That’s always a plus.”
Jasper and Bella stay side by side, eyes on the ruby river, heads stacked like Jenga pieces.
“Well then he’s very lucky.” Jasper whispers.
“Shut up. That’s not, it’s just, he’s kind. I didn’t think he would be kind. Or care. He cares so much. Like the weight of the moon spins on his pinky finger.” Her voice comes out wet, far too sentimental for how long she’s known Peter. Her bond with Jasper feels ancient in comparison, even when she knows somewhere in her head that it’s only been days. It feels like lifetimes.
“We should call him before he has puppies.” He tells her with a little shove.
Making an agreeing noise, she nods. “Lee should keep him company. But you’re right. I – I’m happy we spoke. It’s strange to say, but I missed it, just us.”
“I did too, bunny”
Clap. Clap.
“That was lovely, guys. Really. Now – why the fuck did nobody call?” Peter saunter’s into the alley.
“Brother?”
Bella offers herself to him, standing in a rush and wavering with a full body shiver, terrified he’ll be mad. Edward would have been. He would have berated her. Rightfully so, her mind twists in response. She steps forward, her body saying, please accept me, please don’t reject me, I’m sorry I didn’t call. Her eyes beg him, keep me, baby, and never let me go.
Peter’s there in a symphony of a second. He clings to her, just as she clings back.
‘ How could I ever let you go?’ His body sings in response.
“To be fair my phone was dead.” Jasper cuts in, still on the ground. “How’d you know we would be here?”
“Jazzy!” Alice careens down the alley, Lee following close on her heels.
“Darlin’?” His wife rams into him, knocking him down on the dirty alley ground, his arms tighten around her.
“What is it with you and keeping me waiting?” She giggles into his chest.
“Now, where have I heard that one before?” He laughs with her.
Bella had never thought of Alice as one to get dirty willingly, but seeing her rolling around with Jasper as both of them whisper secrets between their dumb and dopey grins getting in the way, she realizes she misjudged her. Alice was willing to do anything for Jasper. Even roll around on the floor, if it would bring him to smile.
“I missed you.” Bella bites her bottom lip, the movement odd to her out of sync body.
“You scared me.” He murmurs softly in response.
She brushes Peter’s hair away from his face, caressing the strands tenderly, “I’m sorry.”
“I know. I forgive you.” He grasps her hand, brushing it against his cheek, as his eyes flutter shut.
“Thank you.”
“Always.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I’m not. I mean it Bella. Always.”
“Oh.” She swoons. Her heart prickles. Her eyes feel wet.
He chuckles gruffly, wiping a stray silver tear off with his thumb, “don’t cry, Thumper. It’ll all be all right.”
She smiles, the edges wobbling, but Bella feels incredibly powerful pressed against him.
“You know what you need? Let’s teach you how to fight. There’s still Laurent and Maria to consider, you should know how to get out of a scrap. How to win.”
Alice’s giggles get louder as she tucks her head into Jasper’s chin. What had she seen?
Bella takes a step out of his reach, her eyes becoming downturned. “If I fight, I’ll freak out. I could loop again. Who knows where I would go?”
“As much as I loathe to admit it, and trust me, I fucking do – there’s someone who could teach you. Or -” he gives Alice a dirty look, to which she chooses to ignore, “she thinks she can teach you.”
“Of course I can!” Alice bursts at the top of her lungs. “We can work on it together! We could even go on a Jasper-level adventure!”
“Adventure?” Jasper repeats in horror.
“Adventure.” Peter’s eyes glaze.
“Adventure!” Alice ascertains.
“The damned girl just had an adventure.” Peter glares hard enough to set her on fire, “does she really need another?”
“What do you mean – adventure?” Jasper’s scowls at Peter, his grip tightening on the woman on top of him.
Peter groans, “Alice killed the Cullens.”
Bella and Jasper snap to Alice. Their eyes owl. Their lips part.
“She may or may not have killed them.” Peter tags on sheepishly. “I didn’t stick around to check…” He trails off innocently.
If Bella hadn’t known better, she would have thought that Peter and Alice had mercilessly slaughtered the Cullens when the instructions had so clearly been ‘distract them’.
Bella pauses.
No. That’s silly.
Alice doesn’t disagree.
THAT'S SILLY RIGHT?
“Alice burned their pieces?” Jasper inquires, sounding far too calm for the situation at hand.
“Not really.” Peter responds glumly. Bella really needs question him on the resentment, sure, a little was deserved – but Alice murdering them all seemed a bit much.
“That’s mostly untrue. Carlisle was at work.” Alice sheepishly edges. Bella doesn’t like the ‘mostly’. She hadn’t wanted Edward dead…well maybe. She doesn’t want Carlisle dead?
Yes, she decides. She doesn’t want Carlisle dead. He made for insightful conversations and was rather laid back. Despite his age, there was something naively wonderful about the man. Or Emmett, she adds as an afterthought. “What exactly happened?”
“She set the house on fire.” Peter tattles.
Jasper snorts, “Well, they should have been fine.”
Alice growls, “Peter doused them in gasoline!”
Peter rolls his eyes, “only after you had started the fire.”
Jasper places Alice in front of him, pushing her cheeks together as he calmly intones, “why did you set them on fire, baby.” And how long ago was it? And could she loop and fix it?
And – did she have that much control?
That’s not even taking into account the blue world. Was she not supposed to be in it? Or it could have been Jasper that displeased it. There was no way to find out unless she went back, and on top of that, there was further questioning the Laurent/Alistair wonder duo and spooky dream Maria, figuring out how exactly to fight with her powers, why her wolf was so strange, and a bit more selfishly, figuring out Peter’s back story.
One thing at a time, she reminds herself.
She exhales through her nose. It doesn’t matter if the Cullens, sans Carlisle, were dead. There was stuff to get done.
Important stuff.
“Enough.” Bella interrupts. “We can fix it. We just need to…to scare me. That’s how this works right? So give me your worst and nobody will die.”
Peter’s eyes flicker to the blood stain of Ms. Jennie Han, whose corpse is bloating at their feet.
“Mostly.” Bella amends.
Jasper glides upwards, landing on his feet. SOFUCKINGCOOL. Jasper really was Matrix levels of epic when making an entrance. What a showoff. “Can’t say I don’t support that. There’s safety in numbers.”
Alice zips next to her man, “I think that’s a fantastic idea, in fact, I’ve seen it.”
“Can it, Pix.” Peter mutters. Bella stomps on his foot.
“Play nice.”
He snorts, his eyes rolling back.
“Together?” Bella casts her gaze at her family.
“Together.” Peter echoes.
“We’re with you, bunny.”
“Oh, this will be so much fun!” Alice squeals.
Bella shivers. They were so fucked.