What if...

Chapter 7 ~ Problems

A Newborn army…army, of ravening, blood thirsty newborn vampires…set out to kill me.

I thought we were done with James’s coven, and they with us. Laurent went to Denali easy enough, seemingly willing to try the Cullen’s life style. Victoria completely disappeared. Our theory is that she has made a newborn army—wait! Laurent…Denali…never saw. Oh no.

“Edward?” I whispered, clutching his shirt a little tighter in my fist.

“Hmm?” He hummed.

“I never saw Laurent in Denali…he said he was, but then he wasn’t…what if he is helping Victoria? What if he went to the Volturi? What if—“

“Shh…Bella, everything will be fine. It’s ok, I won’t let anything hurt you love.” Edward spoke against my hair.

After everyone had come to the assumption that it was a newborn army that was ravening Seattle, Edward and Jasper thought it was a good idea that I be informed on what was happening. I don’t know if it was a personal choice or if it was my annoyed expression of not knowing what was happening.

I think it was the latter.

“I was the youngest major in the Texas Calvary for the Confederate States Army,” Jasper began, “I was ascended in the ranks quickly, due to my…charismatic personality. It was 1860 when I joined the Army, lying of my age as I was only 17. Battles raged left and right in the South. I was out doing my rounds, making sure all women and children were safe when I came across three women. As I came closer I saw their un-human like beauty, their eyes blood red, but that didn’t halt my advance to them. I gave them my offer of help, to which they used so, differently than I would have ever guessed to imagine.” His face was dazed as he told his story, as if he was watching it play out in front of his eyes.

“Her name was Maria, the one that changed me, made my blood turn to venom, and stopped me in my path of growth. It was 1863 and I was 20 years old. With my new strength, I gained a weakness, yet a great power. I gained the ability to manipulate the emotions of those around me, to sense everything anyone felt. Maria recognized this, used this. My training from war worked to the advantage of teaching others of our kind, newborns, to fight, to kill.

“Vampires in the South at these times were battling for territory, you see, the larger area you have, the less you have to worry about depleting the population, of making it seem more then daily crime to the humans.

“After about a century of training, of killing and fighting I grew weary of the lifestyle. I left Maria and joined my old friend Peter and his mate Charlotte. Eventually I left them also; I was physically pained and hunted very little. I could feel my prey’s every emotion. Feel the pain and fear that they felt as they died to sustain my own.

“Of course, it wasn’t much longer that I met Alice.” Jasper seemed to move passed the hardest part, the most painful.

“I owe her everything. I was standing in a half-empty diner, out of the public eye and out of the rain one night when I saw her. She stood from the stool where she sat and walked right towards me. I was unaware of how to act, seeing as I had done nothing but kill advances made on me for more than a century. But Alice was different.

“Now, she’d seen me coming, of course,” Jasper laughed, his accent coming out.

“You kept me waiting long enough.” Alice, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere said. They looked into each-other’s eyes as they spoke their respected lines.

“My apologies, ma’am,” Jasper looked at me then, “I don’t know what I’d have become without her.”

“Do you think that Laurent is helping Victoria?” I asked Edward, curling into his body on the bed we lay on.