A Life Worth Dying For: Book Two: Two's More Than Company - Alice and Jasper

The White Snowy Stuff Called Snow

/Jasper stared at me a look of disbelief and horror on his face. I could here him silently hoping that he hadn't heard what he thought he'd heard. Unfortunatly he had heard what he hoped he hadn't heard.

I didn't really know what else to say, he had admitted that he thought he loved me but I don't think hew had expected that I knew where we were going together, and hadn't thought it would be THAT far. I decided it was best to have a sudden interest in something else, problem was there was nothing else, just snow and frozen rain.

"Did you mean what I think I heard?" Jasper asked causiously, finding the snow rather interesting all of a sudden.

I decided, although it thoroghly insulted my inteligence to act as though I had no idea what he was talking about. This was a time when my unknown age could give me a great excuse for innocence. I was very sure I didn't want to give away to much of our future together and that slip of the tongue had almost lost me the chance for us to find the love we were truly destined to find.

"Why, what did you hear?" I asked trying to act innocent.

"Oh, uh. Not anything important," Jasper concluded, looking even more embarrased with himself and happily showing that expression to the whitened ground.

I decided it was time to very rapidly think of something else to say, it was one of those events we couldn't even talk about at the time but would laugh about in the future, and the future was where that comment should have stayed, I told myself. 

"Have you ever seen snow, before now? Is there snow in Texas?" I asked, although I could remember much about the world despite my missing memories, and I did know the answer to this, we were in need of conversation. Plus I was hoping I could get one of Jasper's fantastic stories out of it. 

He was such a good story teller, he would have made a legendary author, or even poet but with these lives that could never happen.  

He smiled at my childish question and said," no Alice, you don't get snow in Texas. At least ive never known it. My Grandmother, when I was very young, told me a folktale about snow in Africa and I used to dream of waking up one morning and finding the ground laden with snow. It never happened. 

" We had glorious summers though, sometimes the heat would reach as far as 80, even higher," 

I had no experience of heat either, the snow and the sun would have been lost in the past. I was curious as to what it was like, I liked hearing about Jasper's hazy childhood-it was certainly better than the one I'd managed to lose.  

"what did you do in the summer?"  

His tone changed as he talked about happy times, things that were so rare in his memoirs. 

"We did all sorts, we used to swim in a little stream or go for picnics on the hill. Sometimes all the children would play games like tag, or the boys would play baseball. I dont remember as much as I wish to but things have to go, either that or we wouldn't hade enough space for the new memories to go in," he concluded, what he said had made sense, he was very much a philosopher when he put his mind to it. 

"well my memory must have plenty space since ive barely got any!" I complained. I shouldn't have complained because then I would have seen the warning that popped up in the back of my brain warning me that there was a sudden dip in the landscape and I walked straight into it, ending up waist deep in snow. 

That was when Jasper really laughed.

"Why is there so much snow?" I asked outloud, I could see Jasper didn't look so sure if it was a true question or just a complaint.

"My feet are getting wet," I added, he laughed once,

"Well that's not possible, you're as cold as the snow so you can't melt it," he replied.

"Ok," I laughed, "I can tell someone has spent more time in this world with Vampires, mind you does it snow in Texas," He laughed again,

"No, Alice it doesn't normally snow in Texas," he shook his head.

"Speaking of other vampires," I began this question would hopefully give me more of an insight, " Your friends, Peter and Charlotte, what were they like, you haven't told me much?"

He didn't laugh this time, "You're right, I haven't told you as much as I should."

I was stupidly not paying as much attention to the near future as I should have been and we began to descend into a lower area of ground, an area that looked level thanks to the amount of snow.

I let myself walk right into the deepest part as Jasper began to talk.

"They are probably the people I have grown closest to in this life - Peter is like a brother to me. Yet there are things I have told you that they don't know. You've brought back some good memories I never had before. I remembered my time with them, they were very good together, so entwined in each others lives. I felt very out of place with them and there livces didn't help me. I could tell that Charlotte secretly didn't want me there but she was clever, well taught for a girl and didn't show it."

Jasper noticed the snow was getting higher on me, it was up to my mid calves at this point and walking was getting a little harder but I wasn't going to interupt his story to tell him something he could do nothing about.

"Peter had felt it was his duty to come and take me from Maria, since I had let them go it was 'an eye for an eye' situation. He wanted to try and save me from that world, but he couldn't understand why I was so unhappy. Killing human's was impossible for me I can feel their last emotions and they are always bad. You can't possibly imagine what it feels like."

At that point he stopped and looked down at me struggling in the snow, my knees were almost into the snow now where he could still walk easily,

"Let me help you," he said and came oveer behind me, he placed his hand against my mid-back and bent his knees pressing his other forearm against my knees,

"I've got you," he whispered and I let him lift me up, I seemed to way nothing to him at all, he smilled at me as I met his eyes at there level for the first time.

He didn't say anything for a while just looked at me as he held me tight, my left arm was right up against his chest, to a human it would look as though he was trying to warm up when in truth I thought he just enjoyed heaving me this close.

"Your skin has such a beautiful scent, of all the vampires I've met you have the most appealing scent I've came across,"

"It's just me making up for what I don't have in looks," I said softly.He shook his head firmly once,

"You are much more beautiful than you let yourself believe, Alice, I have never met someone as perfect as you,"

"I'm far from perfect." I mumbled. I knew he could hear me but he said nothing, knowing he had lost the battle.

"I may have lost the battle Alice, but I'll win the war," he said breaking the silence, he could already read me like a book and he hadn't known me that long.

He didn't get back to his story, we continued the walk in silence till eventually there were buildings ahead, building visible in the changing light, darkness was beginning to fall around us and the buildings were being lit by electric lights. We were getting closer.

That's when a flashed vision that lasted only seconds showed me a  complete change of plan.