Jasper's Kill

On the day I got Sonya Wells' letter I only had two weeks left in town. It was a Tuesday night and things were all lined up for us to leave (for Alaska if you asked my meloncholy father) without a word of protest from anyone...besides, maybe, Jake.

Renesmee is a month old...she looks twelve and she and Jake spend a lot of time together. I watch them play with her expensive dolls and they talk about everything under the stars, I feel sometimes, a warmth between them that I swear I had felt towards Jake myself. It seems that with Renesmee, the feeling was pulled from me and planted right inside her, deep in her heart the way she tells me before bed sometimes.

I'll be braiding her hair, weiving the thousands of flowing chocolate strands with a careful accuarcy, "Mmomma" she'd say, slipping the m's out slow like her lips stuck longer than she meant to, Renesmee speaks that word as if it's so sweet she doesn't want it to roll off her tongue too fast, "I really...mmomma...somewhere in here...he's deep in here mmomma" she places a hand on her chest, eyes pensive and focused, eyebrows pulled together in great seriousness, she is thinking so deeply about it all. Her voice is sweet and gentle and calm and honest...I can't deny the truth I hear in her words...she loves him with all of her heart already.

If there is ever an arguement it rises from either Jake or Renesmee, though, with the arrival of Sonya's letter, Alice's vision, and the later arrival of Sonya herself, we realized quite suddenly that we weren't going anywhere

*Bella*

"I can't make out their faces but..."

Alice's voice trails off, I watch her carefully from the door of the dining room, she sits at the table, eyes gazing far out into the future. Carlisle and Esme watch as well, sitting on either side of her at the table they wait patiently. It is just the four of us in the room and I wonder for a moment where Reneesmee is before remembering she and Edward went out hunting just a short while ago.

"She wont be leaving..."

Alice states, Esme leans in "Why? What will happen?" the concern in her voice is clear, I wonder how she can care so much for complete strangers but I'm glad for it. Sonya's letter had gotten here just a moment ago and Alice got a vision just by the sight of it, though she said all she saw was a women in a gown...it made no sense. It was a lot to ask but...Sonya was my very best childhood friend...I had to find out if coming here would end with her being  hurt, and if so, I had to stop it.

"I can't tell" Alice answered "just a feeling...she wont be able to leave"

I hold back a sigh. Sonya Wells had been my absolute best friend back in Pheonix, we were just like sisters. She and I met as toddlers, we went to the same preschool, same elementary school, we even  took our ballet class together. A person would be damned to find one of us without the other. Yet, no matter how much time we spent together, it never seemed enough to keep her away from home enough to avoid him. Sonya's step father was a man by the name of Anthony Taylor, he was one of the most wealthy and important men in the city. He did tremendous good for the community in almost every way possible, he was always recieving awards for one act of random kindness or another, and always played the part of devoted citizen and loving father...no matter how many people came to know better.

Truth was, he was an abusive asshole. Behond closed doors Sonya was whatever he wanted her to be, but always the victum. The abuse was mostly sexual, an occational hit when he got really mad or thought Sonya was beginning to believe that she deserved more than him. Her mother never knew and when she died when Sonya was twelve there was no one to buffer his urges.

There was one instance when I thought Sonya could have been freed from it, when my mother found out about the abuse. She had exploded, cursing and throwing her hands up in the air again and again as if she were trying to toss them up into the cieling. She'd marching into the police station with photos of bruises on Sonya, and reports from a gynocologist she had taken Sonya to see. She kicked up such a storm that we were utterly shocked when no newspaper printed the story, in fact, no one did anything. The police refused to accept any evidence of abuse, or even to keep an eye out on the man. It would take us an entire car ride home to realize that their pride for the man outshined their desire to protect a child.

The anger my mother felt turned her a deep tomato red, every night she would insist that Sonya stay over our house, and after school as well. Mr. Taylor had to threaten to get a restraining order placed against her because he began to go weeks at a time without seeing Sonya. My mother would be tempted to curse and hit him, but she knew there was nothing she could do unless she honestly meant to kiddnap Sonya...but she knew with every official in the city ready to protect the man till hell froze over...there was nothing she could do.

By the time Sonya was old enough to run away or become emancipated, she had learned a crippling helplessness. She had began to believe the lies her fed her...that she didnt deserve better...that she was a whore...that she needed him, she was stuck. Moving to Forks had been the saddest day of my life for leaving her. We wrote back and forth, though I found that it was difficult for me to actuallt keep up with letters. Now she's coming here...and a part of me is so happy I could cry...if I was still able to create tears.