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The concrete was a strange change beneath his feet, stuttering his rhythm before his legs swung on. His heels barely kissed the ground, and he felt no impact as he flew over the road and into Nevada.
He had run the length of Oregon, faster than his travel from Denali to Forks. The Cullen house had been grey and abandoned, doors shut tightly and Jamie had to let himself in. There had been a rush, a panic in the house and as he walked quickly around, Jamie called out. There was no reply and after a glancing search around the rooms, Jamie found himself standing in Carlisle's office.
He had spun on his spot for a moment, unsure of why he was there before fixing his eyes upon the desk. It was immaculate but the chair was tilted in a way of carelessness, as if it hadn't been corrected and put in its proper place. Jamie stepped around the desk and tucked it back where it should be. He kept his hands on the chair for a long time, feeling the leather beneath his fingertips and leaned heavily over it.
He wondered if Carlisle paced, thinking how he had managed to indent himself so firmly upon the room if not. Then Jamie thought of the Carlisle he had seen in the field, planted firmly in front the human, shielding her from harm as if he wasn't a instrument of death himself. He had been balanced, so still that he seemed immovable in his protection. It felt as if he too was in the study then; for a man to fill a space even in his absence made Jamie feel too conscious of just air and shadows.
It had been the same with the chair in his room in Denali, so cold and blank without Carlisle but still his chair. Jamie realised that it had been more himself than a lingering presence that had kept it as Carlisle's, seeing no possible other in his place. He realised it and that frightened him beyond anything he had ever known.
He kept that fear because it fed him, fed his power, and he manipulated it into something more terrible, a fear of loss. A terror felt so deep within him because he had such little left to lose. His aunt, gone long before Susanna but both leaving him equally empty. His life, selfish but he craved it again more than anything he had ever known. Now there was the prospect of a family, large and welcoming with the promise of understanding, and Carlisle; Carlisle who being without made even a chair seem like a ghost.
So Jamie had held onto that fear of loss and loneliness and he had imagined blood, his throat aching painfully. He envisioned the mousy haired girl and how much he wanted her, running helplessly and warm. It was a pull, a magnet with a searching force, knotted at the end of every link he had ever unconsciously made and swinging until it connected with a shock to the mind of the other he sought.
He was no longer in the study but running again, this time far from snow and woodland and over sand. There was an intended place to be, playful in his urgency as he jumped over sun-warmed rock. It was sunrise and he could feel the budding heat of the ground on his bare soles. Then like a lethargic click into place, Arizona - it was where he was racing to. Phoenix, a city of low, beige houses so clear in his mind and without really thinking, Jamie knew exactly where to go amongst them.
